


Miss You

by stressieboi



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, Untagged Characters - Freeform, let's see if ch'boi can find a way to make this not-so-problematic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21433075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stressieboi/pseuds/stressieboi
Summary: Frank thought he was over this stupid fucking crush. He was wrong.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 77
Kudos: 87





	1. Act One, Scene One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, losers. It's me, ya boi. I deleted this work from my og account a minute ago due to big boi break down hours. So, new account, new content. Sort of. I dunno if I'll ever finish this, but it felt disingenuous to all the work I've put into this to just. Delete it. So, here we be.

In the summer of 2004, amongst the sweltering heat and sweat of childhood, the house across the street was sold to the Way family. Frank, being four, might not have noticed that anything at all had changed if not for the fact that the arrival of new people had his mother absolutely worked into a frenzy of excitement. She must have been bored, cooped up all day with a young child and nothing to do, but her energy was soon diverted to finding out what she could about the prospective new neighbors from the gossip vines. Frank spent very little energy on the new neighbors, except to worry, though he wasn’t sure why he was worrying.

The Ways arrived on a Saturday. Linda Iero watched restlessly from the living room window, her young son plastered to her side, confused and with toy truck in hand, as they quickly unpacked their belongings with the help of the U-Haul guys. New children ran about the yard, chasing each other with capes slung about their necks carelessly – as has always been the way of childhood.

Gerard was nine and Mikey was six, Linda informed her son, though he did not ask. She said that they looked like sweet boys, and that she was sure Frank would be good friends with them. Frank was unsure and thought that his mother was being somewhat presumptive – or, at least, the four-year-old equivalent of such thoughts – but said nothing.

It was after a week of watching the new neighbors across the street from the living room window that Linda finally deemed it an appropriate time to greet the Ways. She was just waiting a grace period, she told Frank, who did not ask. She was being polite. She insisted as much as she took Frank by the hand and walked with him across the street.

Linda looked nervous as she stood before the door, shifting awkwardly as she hesitated before the doorbell. Frank wondered if she was sick or something. When she finally pressed the button, she held her breath for several seconds. Then, the door opened.

The lady who answered the door introduced herself as Donna Way, and she smiled with her whole face. Her eyes were kind, too, and Frank decided he liked her. Linda must have thought something similar, because almost immediately, she put on her own best smile and began talking.

She was Linda, and this was her son, Frankie, and would the new neighbors like to come over to the Iero residence for a “welcome to the neighborhood” dinner sometime? After all, they _were_ neighbors. It was the least they Linda could do to extend hospitality.

Donna smiled wider and agreed that she would be there and, _of course she’d bring her sons, too_. Linda had beamed at that, aiming her smile at her son by her side, who looked back at her unimpressed. This was seriously cutting into his play time.

On the day of the Way family’s scheduled visit to the Iero residence for dinner, Frank spent the morning cleaning his room – not that it really needed to be cleaned. Still, he arranged his stuffed animals into as uniform a line as possible for a four-year-old and he arranged his books on the shelf by thickness and height, as he couldn’t read the titles and had no better method of organization besides color. He was nervous again. He continued organizing long after his room was tidy until even his plastic toy trucks were arranged by height in the toybox.

At seven o’clock precisely, the Ways crossed the street and appeared on the front step. Linda opened the door after the first chime of the doorbell, as she’d been waiting anxiously for them to arrive all day, obsessively tidying up the kitchen and living room until it resembled one of those impossibly perfect houses in the furniture catalogs.

Frank stood behind his parents quietly as they exchanged pleasantries, observing the new people before him. He recognized Donna and her big smile and her impossibly light blonde hair. Donald, as the man beside Donna introduced himself, was a big man with dark hair and a gruff expression that could break into smile at the slightest provocation. It was a little alarming.

Donna maneuvered the boy hiding behind her so that he was standing in front of her, her hands planted on his shoulders so that he couldn’t bolt away.

“This is Gerard,” she said, smiling at the boy in her grasp. Gerard said nothing, instead opting to look at the floor.

“And this is Mikey,” said Donald, patting the shoulder of the smaller boy standing next to him. Mikey observed the people in the hallways keenly and without reply.

“This is our son, Frankie,” said Linda, stepping to the side slightly so that Frank could be plainly seen. Frank’s nerves betrayed him in his face, eyes growing large, much like a doe’s eyes when caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and he said nothing. “Say ‘hello’, Frankie,” Linda cooed at him by means of prompting.

“Hi,” Frank said. His voice was hardly above a whisper, as though he wasn’t speaking at all.

“He’s just shy,” said Linda as she patted her son’s head lovingly. “There are appetizers in the living room.”

The adults left the children to get acquainted.

Frank looked over at the boys before him shyly, and they looked back at him in much the same manner.

Gerard was appropriately small for his age of nine, with pale skin and dark hair. He was a little chubby, too, but there was something around his eyes that distracted from the roundness of his cheeks and made him look even more innocent. Mikey, on the other hand, was skinny in the way kids could easily become if they were picky eaters and heavy players. Though his palate was warm – slightly tanned skin, light brown hair, and earthy eyes – his countenance had all the chill of a blizzard. He was quiet and unblinking, and held himself like he was ready to fight anyone at a moment's notice.

It was Mikey who spoke first. “How old are you?” he asked, and it sounded more like an accusation, his voice somehow simultaneously soft-spoken and rigid.

“I’m four,” Frank answered immediately. It was a reflex at this point, with how often the grown ups asked him, thinking that the fact he knew his age was somehow adorable. “How old are you?”

“I’m six,” said Mikey.

Gerard said nothing.

“Do you wanna play trucks?” asked Frank.

Mikey thought for a moment. “No. What else do you have to play?”

“I dunno. We can play all the things.” Frank felt nervous and eager to please, almost in the same way his mother was eager to impress. “I have lots of toys.”

“Do you have superheroes?” asked Mikey. Gerard perked up at this.

“I have a Batman guy… and a Superman guy… I have a lot of guys,” Frank told them. “My dad got me a Wonder-Lady too.”

Gerard’s eyes got big. “You have a Wonder Woman?”

Frank shrugged. He guessed that was what she was called. He didn’t really remember and he mostly just played with Batman and Superman anyway. He liked to put them in his trucks.

“We can play that,” Mikey decided.

“Okay.”

Frank motioned for them to follow him as he made his way towards his bedroom. He was glad he’d cleaned it, though he had no idea how quickly it would soon look as though a tornado had gone through it. He wouldn’t care then, though, when it happened, because he would be too happy, caught up in the high of a good play time with new people.

After a while, in the company of his new friends, he couldn’t remember why he’d ever been nervous in the first place.

~

The first summer of the Ways’ residence across the street passed in a haze of heat and color, the days filled with imagined villains and creative heroics and the nights filled with stories of ghosts and shadows. The boys pretended to be pirates, astronauts, princes, and mutants, always in search of justice, saving the world sometimes from Frank’s backyard or sometimes from Mikey and Gerard’s backyard. They built other worlds in their heads, filling the spaces between fantasy and reality with their own sound effects and turbulence.

Faster than expected, summer began to die slowly with the onset of August and the prospect of school, which stole Frank’s new friends for hours of the day that he was not equipped to count. In their daytime absence, summer oozed into fall at an agonizingly slow pace, and then fall bled into winter and spring, and spring into summer once again. Those days were willed with fantasy, the air smelling of promise and magic, and the nights were dedicated to the stars, which they watched from blankets in their backyards, imagining that maybe they were also made of the same magic that built the universe.

Sadly, summer couldn’t last forever, and it too was swept away into August once more. This time, however, Frank was going to be a kindergartner.

Frank wasn’t necessarily afraid of school, but he was nervous and not particularly sure why. It seemed like a perfectly sound fear to have, however, so he embraced it and let it consume his every waking thought as the days ticked by.

“School’s not so bad,” Mikey told him as the school year grew nearer. “They just teach you to count and tie your shoes and stuff.”

“And you get time to play every day,” Gerard added.

“Plus, sometimes there are cookies.” Mikey was going for the hard sell.

Frank still scared, but he was sold on at least going to try it out, and that was a start.

In the middle of August, Frank began his first trek to school in the back of his mother’s practical gray car, sandwiched between Gerard and Mikey, his Superman backpack at his feet. Linda had told him that morning that her driving him to school was just a one-time thing since it was going to make her late to her new job and he could take the bus anyway, but Frank got the feeling that she really wanted to be there for his first day. In fact, she probably wanted to be there more than he did, though Frank was too nervous to be able to tell.

Frank had butterflies in his stomach that were rapidly nibbling away at his intestines as they pulled out of the suburban driveway and started speeding down the road towards the unknowns of kindergarten. What if school wasn’t anything like what Gerard and Mikey had said? What if he didn’t like school at all?

Gerard nudged his shoulder softly, as though he could sense Frank’s apprehension, and smiled at him reassuringly, a kind of softness around his eyes crinkling a little as he did so. His eyes were hazel, just like Frank’s, but they were so much _more_ – and if someone had tried to ask Frank what that meant, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to explain it in any other way.

Frank felt some of the pressure ease away as Gerard smiled at him, and he vaguely wondered if Gerard had some sort of secret power to calm people down. If he did, that was a really lame power, but it was a super power nonetheless, and any form of super power was better than nothing. It still warranted a superhero persona, in Frank’s opinion.

By the time the car stopped in front of the elementary, Frank had decided that Gerard probably didn’t have any powers because that was the kind of thing he’d have told Mikey, and Mikey would have told Frank, so he would have already known if that was the case. Plus, Gerard would have started walking around with a superhero costume underneath his clothes, and since he hadn’t started doing that to Frank’s knowledge, he felt safe in saying that Gerard was utterly normal. He also felt silly for even thinking it, but ultimately, he was less nervous than he had been.

Every day, Frank, Mikey, and Gerard walked together to the bus stop and sat together, smooshed in a seat near the middle of the bus. Every day, Gerard and Mikey would find Frank after school and board the bus home with him, opting to smoosh themselves back into the same seat they took in the morning. Most days, they would all play together in the Way backyard after school, but sometimes Gerard had homework to do first, so Mikey and Frank would have to play without him for a while, often imagining that they were on a quest to save Gerard from the clutches of some evil villain until he could get finished with his homework and join the game in person. Either way, they were together every day up to dinner time, when they had to go their separate ways until the next morning, during which time they’d journey once again to the bus stop together.

Time passed delicately and with the texture of a blanket pulled carefully over and off one’s face. Innocence faded in much the same way.

Over time, Gerard stopped playing. It was a slow process, first homework preventing his heroic antics, but it soon became more than that. He was growing up, and he was tired of spending his evenings running around behind the house, pretending to shoot down tree-enemies with his laser eyes. His withdrawal was so gradual that Frank did not at first realize that he and Mikey had not only stopped pretending Gerard was captive when he didn’t want to play, but that they hadn’t bothered to consider Gerard’s old characters at all. Around the time Gerard turned eleven, he finally told the boys flatly that he didn’t want to play anymore.

That was that.

To compensate for Gerard’s withdrawal from childhood, a new ritual was adopted. On Friday nights, the boys would all sit in Gerard’s room, listening to Gerard’s music together. Gerard often drew pictures during this time, honing his natural skill, while Mikey opted to play quietly with his action figures and Frank read whatever book he needed to read that week. It wasn’t the most exciting way to spend a Friday, but Frank was okay with sitting still for awhile if it meant that he could be with his friends. He thought maybe Gerard felt a little better about growing up, too, knowing that he could still maintain his relationship with his brother – and maybe even also Frank.

It was there in Gerard’s room that six-year old Frank sat, reading his _Horrible Harry_ book – his mother was always telling people how Frank was just _so_ smart because he could read at a third grade level as a first grader – while Gerard drew pictures of the heroes he’d once pretended to be and Mikey imagined that he might one day wake up to discover that he now possessed the power of flight.

Life was good.

~

After school one day in November, when Frank was eight, Linda and Frank Sr. had intercepted their son before he could go over to the Way’s house to play. They said they just needed to talk to him for a minute and that Mikey would still be there when they were done. An uncomfortable feeling welled up in Frank’s stomach as they sat down across from him at the dining room table and gently broke the news to him.

“It’s not that we don’t love each other anymore,” Linda had said, tears in her eyes. “It’s just that we don’t love each other the way mommies and daddies should.”

“But that doesn’t mean we love you any less,” Frank. Sr. promised. He was not crying.

“We’re still a family, even if we won't live together anymore.” Linda was having a hard time talking clearly with her lip quivering so much. The tears running down her face smeared her mascara, but she tried to smile anyway. She just looked scary.

“We love you so, so much, Kiddo. Nothing is going to change that.” Frank Sr. had a more convincing smile, but it was still not comforting in the slightest to his son, who was quietly watching as his world fell apart.

Frank fell asleep that night, huddled in a ball under his covers and wishing he could sink into himself and cease to exist.

“Mom said you weren’t feeling well last night, and that’s why you didn’t come over to play,” said Mikey the next morning as they made their daily walk to the bus stop. “You weren’t acting sick before that, though.” He was eyeing Frank suspiciously, as though he could catch Frank in the lie if he just stared accusingly for long enough. It had no effect on Frank, however, for two reasons: the first being that he didn’t even see the look, as he was watching the sidewalk beneath him as he walked, and the second being that he was too busy feeling nothing to feel guilty for whatever imagined slight Mikey was doing a poor job accusing him of.

“Sorry,” Frank replied. His voice was small, and it echoed in his own head. It sounded empty. “I just don’t feel good.” He shivered a little, unprompted, despite the lingering summer morning heat. He was cold on the inside.

“What’s wrong with you?” Mikey demanded, though his voice contained more worry than it did indignance. “You’re being weird.”

“Nothing,” Frank said, and he looked up with the intention of putting on a fake smile. The idea fell from his mind, however, when he made eye contact with Gerard’s soft, soft eyes and knew that no matter how convincing his smile was, Gerard would not be fooled.

It was on the walk home from school that Frank finally started to cry. He’d been holding it in since he got the news, thinking that it somehow made him tougher if he managed not to shed the tears hiding behind his eyes. All thoughts of that disappeared, however, when they neared Frank’s house and he realized that his father might not be coming home that night and, if he was, he wouldn’t kiss Linda on the cheek or go to bed in the big bedroom. He would sleep on the couch, like a visitor in the home he had built with Frank’s mother.

Frank was crying so hard that he couldn’t see or breathe, and he had to stop walking.

“Frankie,” Gerard said softly, and suddenly he was kneeling in front of Frank on the sidewalk, his long hair falling over the concern in his eyes. “What happened?”

Though it took a while through the hiccupping and gasping that came with crying so hard, Frank said simply, “My parents are getting a divorce.”

Gerard was gentle as he wiped the tears falling rapidly down Frank’s cheeks with his thumbs, holding onto the younger child’s cheeks so that he was forced to make eye contact. “Look at me, Frankie,” he instructed when Frank tried to look away. Frank did as he was told, and the calm that came from it hit him almost painfully in the chest. “Everything will be okay,” Gerard said seriously, but not without compassion. “It seems bad now, but I promise, everything will be okay.”

“How can you say that?” Frank said through the tears, somewhat more coherent in his forced calm. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“I do,” he insisted.

“But your parents still love each other.”

Frank started crying harder at that, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs, and Gerard wrapped his arms around the younger boy as though to steady him. A moment later, a second set of arms, Mikey’s, wrapped around Frank from the back, his head resting on Frank’s shoulder as the eight-year-old sobbed into Gerard’s shirt.

The Ways did not let go until Frank had calmed down significantly, even though that meant they were huddling together in a hug in the middle of the sidewalk for over twenty minutes.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mikey said, putting his arm around Frank’s shoulders when the boy had finally stopped crying.

Gerard rubbed his back soothingly as he hummed in agreement.

Frank didn’t really think so, but he wasn’t about to deny his friends.

~

The boys had been right, ultimately. Things were hard at first, but Frank slowly acclimated to life with separate parents. Every Wednesday and Thursday and every other weekend, Frank spent the night at his father’s apartment. Otherwise, he stayed with his mother, which was just fine, because that meant he still got to see Gerard and Mikey, even if the amount of time he spent with them was significantly decreased. It was because time was so limited that Frank hated spending it trying to argue with Mikey. Sometimes, however, Mikey was just so _wrong,_ like on one particular occasion when Frank was ten.

“Batman would _not_ beat Superman!” Frank insisted, arms swinging so wildly that he ran the risk of throwing the balance on his swiveling chair and falling on his ass if he kept it up.

“Face it,” said Mikey with no little amount of cool sass. “Batman could just, like, buy some kryptonite and stab Superman with it. Bam! Over! No contest.”

“Are you _insane_?” demanded Frank. “There’s no way Superman would let Batman come anywhere near him with kryptonite! He could just kill Batman with his heat vision or something from far away.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Frankie.” Mikey’s tone was taking on the quality it did when he was talking to someone he considered to be less intelligent than himself. “Batman could make something to block the heat ray attacks.”

Frank was flabbergasted. Sure, he loved Mikey like a brother, but no brother of his would get away with being _that_ stupid.

“Let’s ask Gerard,” Mikey suggested, and before Frank could protest that it was a closed argument – mostly for fear that Gerard would side with Mikey – Mikey was already turning in his chair at the island counter and calling to his older brother. “Hey, Gee!”

Gerard’s head popped up from where it had been hidden by the back of the couch. “What?” he asked, irritated at the interruption of his show.

“Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman?”

“What?” Gerard asked, though Frank got the impression he had heard them just fine the first time.

“Frankie thinks Superman could win in a fight against Batman,” Mikey informed him, making a face as though the very idea put a bad taste in his mouth. “I say that Batman could buy and sell Superman’s death.”

Gerard looked towards the ceiling as though he were asking God a rude question with his eyes, and then stood.

Frank felt heat crawl over his cheeks as Gerard kneeled over the back of the couch, his loose white tee shirt riding up over his stomach as he glared. Frank couldn’t feel his toes.

Gerard took a deep breath, pressed his hands together, and then said, “You’re both wrong. And stupid.”

Frank shrank a little at the insult.

“Batman and Superman are friends. Bruce Wayne is one of the only people entrusted with kryptonite especially given to him by Clark Kent in the even that he loses control of his powers or turns evil or something. However, even in a situation that required Batman to kill Superman, it would take more than just Batman to do so, and vice versa. The fact of the matter is simply that they would never be in that situation in the first place, so it’s both ridiculous and pointless to imagine that one would need to kill the other. That’s why you’re both wrong. And stupid.” Gerard sounded put out. Frank suspected, however, that Gerard liked getting to talk about his comic books, no matter the context.

“Thanks, Gee,” Mikey replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re useless to me.”

Gerard sighed a dramatic, put-upon sigh and threw himself back onto the couch. Frank felt like his chest was burning.

Secretly, Frank was beginning to suspect he loved Gerard in a way that wasn’t as familial as his feelings for Mikey. It was a clean kind of love, though - deep and pure. At the same time, however, it was desperate and ardent, possessing all the awkward and misplaced passion of someone who didn’t know what love was yet. It was confusing. It was easily mistaken for admiration. Secretly – so secretly that Frank dared not try to think it – he was suspecting that maybe his love was romantic.

When it finally became apparent to Mikey that Frank wasn’t listening to his arguments any longer, he elbowed his friend in the ribs to reclaim the wandering attention. For a few minutes longer, Frank continued trying to argue his side, but he had lost the original emotion that the topic provided and was no longer invested in winning without it. His thoughts were elsewhere.

He consented to Mikey’s opinion, reasoning that they had better things to do on a sunny day than argue over what superhero would win in a fight.

Secretly, Frank stole a glance at Gerard, who was sprawled on the couch in his underwear and tee shirt combo, absently scratching his stomach, before he followed Mikey outside.

~

At first, it had just been a gentle preoccupation with the older boy’s every waking move. It was easier to pretend that he was thinking of Gerard as a cool older brother type that he wanted to be just like than it was to acknowledge the real root of his admiration. However, when Gerard turned sixteen, everything started to change – particularly Gerard’s body.

First, his sweet voice started to take on a deeper timbre. Then, Gerard sprang up a couple inches in height practically overnight, growing taller in his slightly hunched frame. All of this meant nothing to Frank, of course, and was hardly noted until the day that the soft in Gerard’s eyes took on the intensity of someone confused enough to be angry.

The Friday night rituals that had once been regular, and then sporadic, had all but stopped with Gerard’s sixteenth birthday. He still rode the bus with Frank and Mikey, even though they all had different destinations now, but he stopped participating in the conversation, preferring the loudest volume on his headphones to the idle chit chat of his younger brother and younger brother’s friend. It was strange for Frank to have Gerard so physically close, pressed up against his side on the small bus seat, yet so far away emotionally. One day, Gerard sat down on the seat across the aisle from Mikey and Frank, stating that it just made more sense as far as leg room went. For Frank, it almost felt like a betrayal.

With every new boundary Gerard put between himself and the other two boys and every month checked off on the calendar, Frank’s thoughts towards Gerard began morphing into more complicated fantasies. As he was no longer allowed to follow Gerard into his room to listen to music on Fridays, his thoughts went in his stead, lingering over Gerard’s steady hands, coated in graphite and smeared ink in every idle movement. Frank told himself he was just fascinated with how artistic Gerard was, and how skilled he was with a pencil. He could no longer lie to himself when, at twelve, he woke up sticky with sweat and something much more uncomfortable after having a very, _very_ un-PG dream about those hands and what they were capable of.

As he took a cold shower at 3 in the morning, attempting to wash all traces of sinful thoughts from his skin, he realized that he could no longer deny hat he felt something a little more than just platonically for Gerard.

At seventeen, Gerard lightened up a little, sometimes joining in conversation with Mikey and Frank the way he had long before puberty had hit him like a truck, but those occasions were few and far between, so Frank knew better than to hope for them. For that matter, Frank knew better than to hope for anything involving Gerard.

At the age of twelve, Frank realized that he was in love with Gerard Way and that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The hopelessness of that love settled into his bones like an anchor tied around the ankle of a man tossed into the sea.

~

Frank lost his virginity at age fourteen. The girl was named Jamia, and she was very nice and pretty. Frank liked her a lot – said that he loved her, even – but the time they spent together was awkward at best, their relationship built on the mutual need not to be lonely. After six months of going steady, Jamia suggested that it seemed like the logical next step to have sex. Frank agreed, and so they did it.

He had thought that it would be passionate and life changing, or something like that, maybe. Instead, as he thrusted his boney hips, wildly trying to find pleasure, his legs rubbing uncomfortably against the cheap plastic faux-leather of Jamia’s mother’s minivan seats, he felt nothing but awkward and slightly sticky.

“It won’t be like that every time,” Mikey assured him the next day when Frank told him what had happened. “You just need practice.” He smiled a slow smiled and moved his eyebrows up and down with suggestive humor.

Frank huffed out a laugh in response and shrugged. “I guess. I just thought it would be something more…special?”

Mikey nodded, and but said nothing.

"Gerard’s coming home for Christmas,” Mikey said as they settled into their regular seats in the middle of the bus.

Frank forgot his previous sleepiness and perked up immediately at the mention of Gerard. “Really? When’s he getting back?”

Mikey shrugged noncommittally. “I dunno. Sometime during Christmas break. He just told me he was coming home soon. He didn’t say much else.”

Frank’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, and he practically glowed with excitement. He hadn’t heard much from Gerard since the elder Way had left for college, but there was an aching in his chest. He missed Gerard a lot, and often late at night.

“He said something about bringing home a surprise,” Mikey added, as though it were important.

“I wonder what it is.” This was a lie. Frank didn’t care what the surprise was. He just wanted to see Gerard again.

Already, Frank’s head was filled with his imagined reunion scenario in which Gerard would hug him and say that he’d missed him, or maybe even kiss his forehead.

Frank smiled all the way to school, while Mikey sulked uneasily as he stared at the passing scenery out the window.

The surprise that Gerard brought home was a person. More specifically, Gerard’s surprise was a man named Bert who went around telling people he was Gerard’s boyfriend – which maybe had something to do with the fact that that’s what Gerard also referred to him as.

Frank had practically been bursting with anticipation as they neared the Way house because he could see Gerard’s car all the way down the street. He had to restrain himself from sprinting the two blocks in his excitement. However, that excitement faded immediately when he and Mikey walked into the Way residence to find Gerard and Bert in the living room chatting with Donna, Bert’s hand pressed protectively over Gerard’s knee.

Gerard looked up and smiled as they walked through the door. “Hiya, boys,” he said. “This is Bert.”

“Hi,” said Bert. “I’m the boyfriend.”

That was all the recognition Frank got before Gerard’s attention was otherwise occupied once again with Donna’s cooing and Mikey’s questions. Frank barely heard any of it. He was focused only on Bert’s hand, which was now resting on Gerard’s thigh.

At home, alone in his room, Frank sat on the edge of his bed, crying quietly into his fists. He hated Bert and his stupid, slimy hair. He hated Bert’s stupid, slimy grin and those stupid, slimy fingers that squeezed Gerard’s thigh and got to touch him freely because they were dating. He hated Bert with a fiery passion, but mostly he hated that Bert got to be with Gerard in the way Frank never, ever could be.

Everyone was over at the Way house, fawning over Gerard’s return, as though he were the prodigal son. Donna’s questions mostly regarded his relationship, and if they were thinking about getting married, though Frank thought it was much too soon for them to be talking about that. Mikey tried to steer questions towards the topic of art school, but the effort was ultimately useless. Frank couldn’t look at Gerard without seeing Bert’s stupid, slimy hands all over his body in a way that Frank’s reasonably intelligent and clean hands never could. It hurt him to watch.

He told his mother he was sick – a convincing lie, considering how pale he was with disappointment and envy – and left quickly and quietly, trying not draw unnecessary attention towards himself and away from the _happy couple_. He barely made it to the bathroom across the street before he threw up.

Frank thought back to the day that he told Gerard and Mikey about his parents’ divorce as he sat huddled on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet, crying his eyes out. Gerard had been thirteen at the time and Frank had been so little. He must have looked so small. It was no wonder Gerard had wiped his tears away and held him, no wonder he’d promised that things would be okay when there was no way he could rightfully know. Frank was just a small, scared kid, and Gerard must have considered Frank to be some kind of little brother type. That thought was both comforting and repulsive at the same time.

Frank didn’t want to be Gerard’s little brother. Frank wanted to be what Bert was to Gerard. Still, he had to take a little pride in the thought that he had a place in Gerard’s heart that maybe wasn’t as big as Mikey’s part, but was still there before Bert and would still be there long after.

Frank ended up in his room, curled on the edge of his bed precariously as he shoved his fists into his eyes to make the tears stop. He was still crying when Mikey found him a little over an hour later, having been told that Frank was sick and knowing better. Mikey didn’t ask what was wrong, or even say anything. He knew and had always known. Instead, he just wrapped his arm around Frank until his friend stopped shaking.

Frank thought it was nice, but it wasn’t the same.

~

Frank gave up on trying to date Jamia. He did not love her and never would, even if he had pretended to for his own sake. When he broke up with her, he cried to make her feel better about the situation, as though it was hurting him to have to do it. It wasn’t hurting him very much at all, in all honestly. While he was maybe a little disappointed that he couldn’t make himself as hopelessly devoted to her as he was to Gerard, he was nowhere near as disappointed as Jamia, who had been planning a life with him in the company of her friends without his knowledge. His tears made her feel better, though, if only a little, and she was talking to new guys a few months later, mostly over the damage of her first breakup.

Then, Frank gave up his weekends in favor of getting a job, just as Mikey had done. It wasn’t ideal, but no work was ideal, and he had to find a way to pay his phone bill somehow. He got a job babysitting every Sunday, which was abundantly lame but sufficient in paying the necessary bills. When he turned sixteen, he got another job stocking shelves and working the cash register in the local supermarket, which allowed him more money to put into savings for college and fill up his gas tank.

Then, but perhaps with the most difficulty, Frank gave up on Gerard.

Gerard did not seek Frank out during that Christmas break. He was too preoccupied to worry after the health of an otherwise fit teenage boy who could take care of himself. It bothered Frank a lot, but he couldn’t risk going over to see Gerard because then he’d have to see Bert, and then he’d just get sick to his stomach all over again. Frank saw no more of Gerard that Christmas break besides the first two days he’d attempted. Gerard left five days later, Bert in the passenger seat and all of Frank’s late-night thoughts in the trunk.

Gerard didn’t come home for summer vacation, instead opting to work over the summer in the town where his college was located. When he did come home, which was rarely, he always brought Bert. Frank made sure he was staying with his dad at those times.

Gerard did not come home for the next Christmas break. He and Bert had had a horrible, nasty break up that resulted in his needing to find a new place of residence, so he was staying where he was to sort out his living situation and recover at a friend’s house, away from the loving but ridiculously prying eyes of his mother.

That summer break yielded a few very sporadic visits from Gerard. Frank was too scared to see him, but he found that Gerard cold be easily avoided by not actively seeking him out. He holed up in his room for the duration of Gerard’s stays that summer.

Christmas break once again yielded no Gerard, because he’d opted to take that time to travel abroad. Frank was relieved, but unsurprised.

The most disappointing part of all of that was simply that there was never any indication that Gerard asked about him. Linda never relayed any conversation related to him, and she would have had there been any. Frank had been wrong. Maybe Gerard had never cared about him and only ever considered him some annoying kid that followed his little brother around. That’s probably what hurt the most.

At sixteen, Frank believed he had finally relieved himself of the pain of his childhood crush.


	2. Act One, Scene Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ch'boi did some tweaking to this chapter, and I intend to tweak some of the future chapters as well. It's been, like, a year since I originally posted this. People change. Story lines get better. Evolve, adapt, overcome and all that.

The world is an ugly place as a matter of fact, but this ugliness has been known to vary. For example, were Frank soaking in the sun on a beach somewhere, a cool breeze caressing his skin as his worries blew away into oblivion, the world might seem more on par with the not-as-ugly ugly step sister from _Cinderella_. However, at 6:50 in the morning on the first day of school, alarm clock blaring directly into his ear as the last shreds of dreams were ripped away from his head, the world looked a lot like the rotting-yet-living corpses from the human fertilizer episode of _Hannibal_ – that is to say, ugly as fuck and somewhat disturbing.

It took every ounce of willpower Frank possessed to haul himself out of bed and rub the crusted sleep from his eyes, and even more to get ready.

It was the usual routine: get up, attempt to locate a semi-clean shirt and a pair of pants without crotch holes, stumble into the bathroom, brush teeth, forget to shave, apply deodorant, grab the backpack, kiss Mom's cheek, and then leave. All of this took less than twenty minutes, which effectively optimized sleeping time. He was about as ready as he could be to face the world.

“That’s fucking stupid. What do you think, Frank?”

Frank started in surprise as his left headphone was suddenly separated from his ear, and he was instinctively livid at the intrusion. He glared a the only possible perpetrator, which happened to be the kid who had started sitting next to him on the bus the year before. His name was like Brandon or something.

“What do you want?” Frank demanded.

“Ryan said he thinks Batman never should have been able to defeat Superman in that movie with Ben Affleck. Obviously, he’s a fucking moron, but he doesn’t believe me, so I asked what you thought.” The kid – Brandon or something – smiled at Frank innocently, as though he was completely unaware that he’d just committed and ear bud crime and was quite possibly the last person that Frank wanted to talk to at that moment.

“I think you’re both wrong and that the movie industry was looking for drama,” Frank huffed. “They never should have been in that situation in the first place. Batman and Superman are supposed to be friends.” Frank plucked his missing ear bud from the kid’s hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Frank did not wait to see if he was excused or not before replacing his ear bud and glaring out the window, just as he’d done every morning on the way to school since Mikey had graduated.

There was a paper taped to Frank’s locker when he arrived at school that morning. It was a copy of his schedule with a note hastily scrawled on the bottom, most likely by the guidance counselor. “Slight schedule change,” it said.

Frank looked over the class list briefly and then pulled the schedule he’d been mailed out of his bag for a comparison. The courses were all the same. Maybe there was some kind of mistake. Whatever.

Frank ripped the thing from his locker and shoved it into his bag along with the original copy. He had shit to do that didn’t involve clerical errors.

The first day of school was always dedicated to familiarizing the student body with the contents of the student handbook. This year, the administration decided to make the whole ordeal somewhat more bearable by showing videos – one for each class period – of some kids listing off the important stuff contained in the handbook. It took less time and it was better than reading straight from the book, but it was super lame. No kid was that naturally peppy when talking about dress code.

When the time came for eighth hour, Frank had a headache just behind his eyes from boredom. It had been nothing but syllabuses and rules all day. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there and maybe smoke a cigarette before his mom got home.

Frank was the last to arrive in class, not having the energy to walk quickly anywhere, and he took the last available seat in the back of the room next to a kid he’d never talked to with reddish hair and a lip ring. Frank didn’t know his name, but he’d seen him around the hallways before. He didn’t ask.

“Hello, everyone.”

Frank’s head snapped in the direction of the voice that had just spoken. It couldn’t be. No fucking way.

“My name is Mr. Way,” Gerard said, standing in front of the class in dress pants, a button-up shirt, and a tie as though he were an actual adult. “For those of you who got the notice on your lockers this morning and don’t already know, this class was originally going to be taught by Mrs. Stephan. Unfortunately, she had to resign at the last minute due to family emergency.”

Frank felt like a fucking idiot. The schedule change wasn’t in his classes. It was in his teachers. _Why didn’t he check the teachers?_ Then he would have known that he would be seeing Gerard eighth hour and would have had enough time to properly panic about it.

Gerard looked a lot different, but he was still undeniably Gerard in essence, from the swish in his hips when he walked to the way his hands moved everywhere about him when he talked. He’d changed his hair since Frank had last seen him, which was probably something like three years prior. Instead of the black it had been, it was now a bright, ostentatious shade of red. He looked like he’d lost weight, too.

This couldn't be happening. Frank did the math. Gerard was only twenty two. How could someone who was still essentially a child teach other children?

Frank's breathing accelerated. He was going to _kill_ Mikey, that fucking coward. How could he have forgotten to mention this? They'd been texting all day! He'd had plenty of opportunities to say, "Hey, by the way, my brother works at your school now. Sorry!" That _bitch_. Frank had half a mind to rip him a new asshole.

Frank came back to reality when the lights went on, and he found that he’d missed the entirety of the handbook video and part of Gerard’s monologue.

“Since you were all required to ace two years of preliminary art courses to even qualify for this class, I’m not going to baby you. Every three weeks, I’ll assign a new subject for you to represent in whatever medium you see fit. Your only requirement is that you thoroughly illustrate the subject matter and use your class time wisely. You’ll also be given an additional two weeks at home to work on your projects, as well, but I’ll dock points off the finished project if I see you wasting time in class.”

Gerard took a stack of papers from his desk, divided it in two, and handed the smaller stacks to people in the front desks to be passed backwards, and then asked if there were any questions. Frank was having a hard time breathing, let alone listening to other people ask dumb ass questions about the course work. He was startled when the kid next to him handed him a syllabus, and he ignored the strange look he was given as a result.

Why hadn’t his mom said something? Did she know? Why hadn’t Mikey said something?

When the bell rang, Frank wasted no time in grabbing his shit and bolting out of his seat, desperate to get away from whatever the fuck was going on.

When Mikey answered the phone after the third ring, Frank didn’t bother with greetings, instead opting to get right to the point of the matter.

“What the _fuck_, Mikey?”

The other end of the phone was silent for a moment, as though registering what was said before responding, “Hello to you, too.”

Frank dug his shoes into the grass in his backyard, head resting against his backpack and cigarette smoking between his fingers.

“Why didn’t you tell me he got a job at the school?" Frank snapped, ignoring his friend’s sarcasm.

“Who got a job at the school?” Mikey was deadpan, but Frank knew he must be joking.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he spat. “You know I’m talking about Gerard.”

“Oooooh…” Mikey said without inflection of any kind because he was truly an asshole at heart. “Gerard. Right.”

“Mikey, what the fuck.” This was less of a question and more of a blanket statement. What the fuck was right. What the fuck, indeed.

“I guess it just slipped my mind. Sorry.” Mikey did not sound sorry at all.

Frank took a long drag from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for a long time, only releasing it roughly through his nose when he needed to breathe again. “Did it also slip your mind that I hate his fucking guts?”

“You don’t hate his guts.”

“How the fuck would you know how I feel about his guts? I’m really pissed off right now, Mikey.”

“And what do you want me to do about that? You’re the one with the issue. You’re the one who needs to deal with it.”

Frank took another drag from the cigarette, watching as the white part of the stick burned orange and shrank, revealing ash in it’s wake. Usually, smoking calmed him down. It wasn’t doing much at that particular moment besides hindering his breathing.

“I’ve known you since you were four, Frank. That’s how I know you need to grow the fuck up and get over whatever problem you have with Gerard. Like it or not, if you’re in my life you’ll have to see him at some point.”

“Thanks a fuck ton, Mikey,” Frank said bitterly as he stubbed his cigarette out into the grass. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

~

“Unfortunately, your schedule is pretty much locked in,” said the guidance counselor. She was a fair skinned blonde lady pushing her sixties, but the stress she wore in her brow made her look older. “I can’t change your eighth hour class.”

“What do you mean?” Frank asked. “There isn’t anything I can take instead?”

“All of the classes offered eighth hour are for underclassman and specialty area classes. You don’t have any of the prerequisites to take the other specialty area classes, and you’ve already taken all the underclassman courses. I can’t make you a teacher’s aide, either, because all the teacher’s aides need to be decided a year in advance. I’m sorry, Frank.”

Frank forced a smile. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll just deal with it.”

“Your first project, which you’ll be starting next week, is to depict happiness,” Gerard told the class. He was sitting cross-legged on top of an unoccupied desk in the front of the classroom, casually looking over the students as though they were part of the dominion over which he ruled. “I know that sounds kind of lame, but I really want to get to know each of you. As per standard, you’ll have three weeks in class and two weeks at home to finish your project before it’s due.”

Gerard stood from his perch and walked with a lazy but deliberate gate towards the guy Frank had been sitting next to in class the day before.

“What does happiness mean to you?” Gerard asked him with a smile. “Like, truly and incandescently happy.”

The kid looked up at the instructor slowly, reddish hair falling into his eyes. He thought for a good ten seconds before replying, “I don’t know, Sir.”

“You don’t know what makes you happy?”

The kid shook his head and looked back to the surface of the table he was sitting at.

If Frank were smart, he’d have followed the kid’s example and looked away when he still had the chance. When Gerard turned to locate his next victim, he made direct eye contact with Frank’s dumb ass.

“What about you?” he asked Frank. “What makes you happy?”

Frank felt something in his chest tighten as he continued to look directly at Gerard and his stupid red hair. It was like his heart was holding his breath, or something stupid like that.

“I dunno about happiness,” Frank grumbled. “But I get a real kick out of being put on the spot.”

There was quiet laughter around the room, and Gerard broke eye contact to observe it long enough that Frank could look down and away from the person who had previously held his attention.

“I guess I have a different perspective on happiness,” Gerard said. “I’m constantly seeking after the things that bring me joy, so I’m always aware of them. Quick! Someone ask me what makes me happy!”

A girl sitting behind Frank immediately replied, “What makes you happy, Mr. Way?” Frank immediately cataloged her face in his head so that he would always recognize her as a fucking nerd.

“Thank you for asking.” Gerard walked into the aisle between the rows of table. “Comic books make me happy. Freshly brewed coffee makes me happy. The sound rain makes when it hits the roof makes me happy.” Gerard stepped to the front of the room and took a photograph from his desk to show the class. “My family makes me happy,” he said. Then, he replaced the picture on his desk and sat back down on the front table.

“Pick something that makes you happy – anything just short of porn and drugs – and use your selected medium to convey that feeling. I want to be able to feel exactly what you were feeling when I look at it. Does everyone understand?”

There was a mumbled consensus in the affirmative.

“Excellent,” Gerard said. “Tomorrow, we’ll be watching a couple of really cool technique videos to kill some time. However, that just means you need to be all the more prepared to make art on Monday.”

The bell rang just as Gerard finished his sentence, and Frank hauled ass out of there so fast that his form might have blurred a little with the speed.

~

The third day of the traditional three-day back-to-school week was filled with subtle dread. The only time Frank spent not worrying about eighth hour was the time that he was in eighth hour and could be actively panicking inside of his head. At least he didn’t have to worry about the prospect of social interaction with Gerard, since they were just watching a video, but the very fact that the two were present in the same room was enough to set him on the edge of his seat.

He smoked two cigarettes when he got home to calm himself down, but they effectively did nothing, and Frank was left to stoop in his discomfort until his mother came home and found him lying in the grass in the backyard.

As soon as he sat down at the dinner table with his plate and before he could even take a bite of the green bean on his fork, his mother was asking, “Why didn’t you tell me Gerard got a job at your school?”

Frank wanted to scream. Couldn’t that fucker just leave him alone?

“I thought you already knew,” Frank replied, and then he started shoveling the food in his mouth in an attempt to deter conversation. He was running on the hope that his mother wouldn’t make him talk with his mouth full.

He was wrong again.

“That boy never tells anybody anything,” said Linda with a huff. “I was talking to Donna this morning. She told me she didn’t even know he was coming back to town until he was already moved in.”

Frank looked at his mother and decided not to make a bitter comment. She looked too tired to deal with his angst, hair falling in sporadic strands about her face, which was accessorized with dark circles under her eyes. There was no point in concerning her with his inner conflict.

He just nodded and let the subject drop.

~

The first studio assignment – “illustrate happiness” – was somewhat difficult. The brightest part of his life was his daily text conversations with Mikey, which had stopped recently due to their fight. Besides, he wasn't lame enough to paint a phone.

It had never really occurred to Frank how unhappy he was. He lived with his mother full time only because she worked a lot and that meant he got to be by himself most of the time, which he liked. His dad was busy, too. If he wanted to see Frank Sr., he had to basically set up an appointment. Frank didn’t have any friends besides Mikey, either. In fact, he spent most of his time trying to avoid talking to other people.

As he stared blankly at the canvas before him, he had the sinking suspicion that he was going to fail his first project.

~

The following two weeks were slow and hot, but that was nothing compared to the rolling heat withing Frank’s own body. He felt like he was boiling within himself as he waited anxiously for the promised three-day weekend that came with Labor Day.

Frank had just about reached his limit from dealing with that Brandon kid who kept trying to talk his ear off on the bus every morning and carefully maneuvering himself around Gerard during eighth hour to prevent any unnecessary contact. It was exhausting.

To recuperate, he spent his weekend laying in bed and watching shitty horror movies, cramming junk food into his face as he tried his best to forget existence.

~

On Tuesday, Frank made the ultimate blunder: he allowed himself to get so focused on his art project that he didn’t realize how close it was to the end of class until the bell rang and his dumb ass hadn’t even started to clean up. He still needed to put up his project and wash the paint trays. He said a silent prayer to anyone who would listen as he slung his bag over his shoulder and put his project in the cabinet, pleading with the universe that Gerard wouldn’t try to talk to him.

Evidently, the universe had a sense of humor.

“Are you avoiding me?”

Gerard was talking to him. Gerard was talking to _him_. Of course, Gerard was talking to him. There was no one else in the room. Of fucking course.

“Uh, no,” Frank said simply, but he didn’t make eye contact.

There was an oppressive silence in the room as Frank carried his paint tray and brushes to the sink and turned on the water, allowing it to wash away the loose paint. He hoped that maybe Gerard would just let the subject drop.

“Oh,” he mumbled. Then, after a few more seconds of silence, he said, “You just haven’t really spoken to me since I got back.”

“What do you want me to say?” It was all Frank could do to keep his voice even, the boiling sensation he’d been feeling for the passed few weeks starting to grow. He didn’t want to talk. Why couldn’t Gerard just leave him alone?

“How about, ‘hi? Or something.”

“Hi.”

Frank ran the water over the brush bristles, separating them with his fingers so that the current could remove the paint that had accumulated at the base. He pretended that this required an immense amount of concentration.

“I just… I thought it would be a nice surprise. That you’d get to see me every day, I mean,” Gerard continued.

Frank didn’t respond, acting as though he were consumed with scrubbing the dried paint from the trays. It was after a full minute of silence that Gerard added, “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

The heat within Frank’s body reached volcanic levels. He dropped the tray into the sink suddenly, looking to where Gerard was seated on a nearby table, self-consciously hunched in on himself, and felt a glare take over his face. How fucking _dare _he look hurt.

“Let me ask you this,” Frank spat, enjoying the surprise that came over the elder Way’s face at his acidic tone. “What made you think I’d be happy to see you? Seriously? What gave you that impression? I haven’t spoken to you in something like three years, and you hadn’t exactly attempted a real conversation any time before that." Frank turned off the water. "For me to avoid you, you’d have to have actively sought me out at some point. But you didn’t. We both know you fucking didn’t.”

Frank stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

There was a power in the way he left, having said what he needed to say and managing not to cry the angry tears that were welling up behind his eyes. He had appeared strong. Unfortunately, any illusion of strength dissipated as soon as Gerard called his name and started after him. At that moment, pride be damned – Frank started running, turning down the nearest hallway and ducking into the first room he saw.

A room full of people stared back at him.

At the desk in the front of the room sat a sturdy woman with dark skin and coiled hair whom Frank recognized as Mrs. Carlisle, one of the freshman English teachers. She appraised him in his disheveled, out of breath state, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you here for the Drama Club meeting?” she asked. By her tone of voice, it sounded as though she thought he was in the wrong place. She wasn’t totally incorrect in that assumption.

Frank thought of Gerard, who was somewhere out in the hallway. If he thought Frank had been avoiding him before, he had no idea what lengths Frank was willing to go to. He hadn’t seen anything yet.

“Yeah, sorry,” Frank lied. “I thought I was going to be late.”

“The meeting hasn’t even started yet.”

“I guess I got the time mixed up.”

Mrs. Carlisle looked suspicious, as though Frank were secretly up to something dastardly. It was somewhat offensive, but then Frank imagined he probably looked a bit like trouble with his hair tousled and his face red from the residual effects of his anger.

“Just take a seat,” she finally said.

Frank did as he was told. In the back of the room, the kid who usually sat by Frank on the bus – Brandon or something – was practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. Frank sat down in the desk beside him reluctantly, but only because he didn’t know anyone else in the room and was trying to pretend he was supposed to be there.

“You’re joining Drama Club? Are you going to be in the play?” the kid asked in a loud whisper, his words blurring together in excitement. “Did you know it’s a musical? Can you sing?”

“Uh, I guess,” Frank said, trying to give a blanket answer to the rapid-fire questions. He doubted he’d actually do the play, but the least he could do was pretend if he was going to hide amongst the theater geeks until he was sure Gerard was gone.

Brandon-or-something practically squealed. “Oh my god!” he said. “I didn’t know you liked theater!”

Frank stared at the surface of the desk he was sitting in, thoroughly regretting his seating choice.

As the minutes ticked by and the last of the theater geeks trickled in, Mrs. Carlisle stood and addressed the room. “Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Drama Club meeting,” she said. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mrs. Carlisle, and I teach freshman English. As many of you know, Mrs. Stephan has resigned due to tragedy in the family, so I’ve taken over the Drama Club in her absence.” She grabbed a stack of booklets from her desk and began to pass them out. “Now, I don’t know how Mrs. Stephan conducted her auditions, but my process will be fairly simple. I will assign you into groups of three people each to perform a scene from this practice script for me. Those who are not performing will wait in the hall. You’ll have until Friday to familiarize yourself with your lines. I don’t expect you to have the scene memorized, but ideally, you should be able to perform your character with a certain amount of creativity and uniqueness. Any questions?”

“The play is going to be a musical, right?” asked Brandon-or-something. “I heard it was going to be a musical.”

Mrs. Carlisle smiled. “Yes, we’re doing a musical. However, I’m still working on getting the musical I had in mind approved by the administration, so until all of that is arranged, I’m not telling you what play we’re doing. Any other questions?”

There were no other questions.

“Alright, then I’ll assign your groups.”

As it turns out, Brandon-or-something was actually named Brendon, and Frank only learned this when they were put in the same group together, along with Brendon’s friend Ryan, who followed him like a shadow.

Frank left the meeting with Brendon and Ryan with the intention of using them as social shields if Gerard tried to talk to him again. The boys didn’t seem to notice the way Frank nervously looked around the hallways as they exited the building, Brendon too busy chirping away in excitement about the play and Ryan too preoccupied with following every word out of Brendon’s mouth. Frank didn’t even bother tuning into the conversation until Brendon asked him a direct question.

“So, are we going to meet up and run lines together?” He was looking at Frank with eyes so big, they were practically the size of the moon.

“I was kinda thinking of just reading through them by myself. You know. To, like, develop the character and stuff. By myself.” It wasn’t his best lie, but it was all he could think of off the top of his head. He wasn’t really planning on going to the audition.

“Oh,” said Brendon, and he didn’t hide the dejection in his voice. “Alright.”

Frank felt bad for letting the poor kid down, but not guilty enough to give in.

~

It was funny, the way Gerard sidestepped Frank during class. It was like he was trying to avoid a land mine located somewhere within a five-foot radius of Frank’s table that could somehow be set off if he so much as looked at the neighbor boy the wrong way. Maybe that was true. After all, there was still an uncomfortable heat in the pit of Frank’s stomach where his body had first held his unrequited love and eventually his insurmountable disappointment.

Frank worked on his project diligently, focused intently on the most minute brush strokes. He could pretend this was because he didn’t want to give Gerard an excuse to dock points, but mostly it was because he didn’t have to worry about unwitting eye contact if his face was barely three inches from the canvas.

It was Friday before Gerard finally spoke to Frank again. “Frank,” he said. Frank looked up slowly, expression carefully blank as he looked to his instructor. “Could you please stay after class?”

There was panic in Frank’s chest as he fought to keep his expression even. He didn’t want to stay after class. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to move the fuck on and be left alone. Why couldn’t this asshole just leave him alone?

“I can’t,” Frank lied. “I, uh… I have auditions. For the play. You know, right after school.”

“I’m sure you can be a few minutes late.”

“I’d rather not risk it. I’m, like… I really wanna get a good part. Raincheck.”

Frank had no intention of actually making good on that raincheck, but the empty promise was enough that Gerard agreed.

“Alright,” he agreed, nodding. “Raincheck.”

Frank hadn’t actually read over the script because he’d planned on ditching the audition. He might have still ditched if not for the fact that Gerard stood in the doorway as the students filed out and watched as Frank made his way to Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom. It was irritating, but whatever. Frank would just get his audition over with and go home. It was as simple as that.

As the students filed into the classroom, Frank skimmed his lines. He wasn’t expected to have them memorized, which was good, and his reading comprehension was decent. He wasn’t too worried.

Brendon sat next to Frank with all his usual vivacity and enthusiasm, smiling wider than the Cheshire cat.

“Ryan didn’t think you’d show,” he said. “I knew you would, though.”

“Yeah?” Frank scratched at the hair on his neck, guilt ghosting around his heart.

“Sure! I mean, it was just a hunch, but I was really hoping you’d try out.”

“Why?”

A soft redness spread over Brendon’s cheeks and his smile faltered for a small fraction of a second. “I just… I thought you’d enjoy it.” He quickly turned his body away from Frank and towards Ryan, embarrassed.

“Hello, again. Welcome to all of you who came to audition,” Mrs. Carlisle said, standing in the front of the room to capture the attention of the the twenty or so kids who showed up. She seemed to notice Frank, and she almost looked surprised that he’d shown up.

Damn people and their reasonable expectations of his flakiness.

“Who would like to go first?”

Frank shot his hand up. He was eager to just get the whole thing over with.

Mrs. Carlisle appraised him with scrutiny. “Alright, Frank’s group can go first,” she said. “If everyone else would be so kind as to wait in the hallway, please and thank you.”

Frank’s read-through wasn’t the best in history, but he wasn’t bad. He had good inflection and he didn’t stumble over his words, and that was the most he had expected after only skimming through his lines once before performing them.

Brendon, true to form, had really put his heart and soul into every line, annunciating perfectly and adding depth to lines that had just seemed to be filler to Frank. He was good, and obviously pining for a lead role. Frank kind of hoped he got one.

Ryan had been nervous and that much was obvious from the very second he opened his mouth. He read his lines rigidly, holding his booklet close to his body as he stood stiffly off to the side. Frank felt a little bad for him. The poor kid looked terrified.

When they finished their scene, Mrs. Carlisle smiled widely at them. “Thank you,” she said. “Call backs will be announced at Monday’s meeting. I hope to see you all there.”

She gave another pointed look at Frank as he walked out of the room, but he said nothing and hauled ass out of there.

Frank had almost made it out of the building without incident, Brendon and Ryan walking by his side, when a voice called out to him from behind.

“Frank?” It was Gerard. Of fucking course it was Gerard. Frank would recognize that voice anywhere, even if he didn’t bother to turn around and check. “Can we talk?”

Frozen in his spot and unwilling to turn around, Frank was about to say that he couldn’t when Brendon chimed in.

“Don’t worry,” said Brendon with a smile. “We’ll wait for you outside.”

“Perfect,” Gerard said, not allowing Frank time to come up with an excuse. “It’ll just take a minute.”

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Frank muttered to Brendon as he reluctantly turned to face the elder Way brother. He was really starting to get sick of that kid. “It’s fine.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” Gerard repeated. He was smiling, but it looked forced. His soft eyes were nervous.

“What do you want?” Frank snapped, arms folded over his chest protectively as he leaned against one of the back-row tables.

Gerard closed the door and looked towards Frank. He was fidgeting with some kind of ring on his thumb, twisting it around as he struggled to make eye contact. “I just wanted to talk. You know, maybe explain myself.”

Frank said nothing, his silence expectant.

Gerard sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “Look,” he began. “Before… when I was… I wasn’t really in a good place.”

Frank could feel his eyes rolling of their own accord. That was the best he had? What a fucking cop out.

“My relationship with Bert was pretty much all-consuming. We were just, like, so invested in each other that nobody else existed.” He was still staring at the ring on his thumb, turning it and moving it up and down over his flesh with nervous energy. “When we broke up, I took a lot of time to find myself. I just… It’s not like I ever meant to shut you out. I was in a bad place.” Gerard finally looked up, eyes as soft as Frank’s first day of kindergarten. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re family and that I care about you.”

Frank blinked incredulously, staring with an expression that openly said, “That’s such complete and utter bullshit.”

Fuck him and those stupid eyes.

“Did you somehow forget about how often I called when you left for college, and that you never answered? Did you somehow misplace a hundred texts from me, missing you and wishing you’d just say anything?” Frank’s face was hot, and his eyes burned. “You can’t blame all your shit on being in a bad place post-breakup. You didn’t even start dating Bert until your second year of college and you’d already been ignoring me before that.”

Gerard took a step forward, like he might reach out, but Frank clumsily wrenched himself away from where he’d been sitting, determined not to let him make contact.

“I’m not your family,” Frank said darkly, voice thick with emotions he was ashamed to possess in the first place. “I’m not your parents and I’m not your little brother. Those are people you actually care about. I’m just the kid next door that followed you around like a puppy. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

A pitying look came over Gerard’s face, and Frank had half a mind to slap it off until he realized that his own face was wet. Frank was crying. He had actually started crying. What was he? A five-year-old?

Frank made to storm off, but Gerard blocked his path, and when he tried to push past, the elder Way grabbed him by the shoulders, turning Frank so that they were facing each other. Those soft, soft eyes made Frank the tears fall faster and in greater volume. He felt like he was eight years old all over again.

“Frankie,” Gerard murmured desperately, and then he was cupping Frank’s face the way he always used to when they were growing up and the neighbor boy would cry, wiping the tears with his thumbs. “Look at me.”

Frank ripped himself away from the overwhelming gentleness, the hurt that had been festering within him for years pouring down his face. “Don’t fucking touch me!” His voice was cracked and raw. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Uh, hey,” said a voice from the doorway.

Frank roughly scrubbed his face and tried to pull himself together as the kid from his art class with the reddish hair and the lip ring stepped into the room.

“I just…” he mumbled. “I thought, uh, that I was giving you a ride, Frank. Didn’t you want me to, like, give you a ride home?”

The guy was trying to bail him out. Thank God.

“Yeah,” Frank replied, snatching his bag from where he had shed it on the floor. He walked quickly passed the kid with the reddish hair and into the hallway, hardly stopping to throw a bitter, “Goodbye, Mr. Way,” over his shoulder as he made his escape.

The guy’s name was Bob and he only thing he said on the ride back to Frank’s place besides his initial introduction was, “Can you give me directions to your place?” Other than Frank’s occasional pointers, they rode in silence. Frank appreciated as much.

Bob drove a white Corolla, probably from around the year Frank was born, with shedding tan seats and a low ceiling. It was a piece of shit, the fabric on the interior shredded and falling off and the steering wheel weirdly sticky. It smelled odd, too, but Frank got the feeling it was well-loved. There were stickers stuck to the dashboard, some depicting guitars and drums and the like, and others with band symbols on them. Frank liked the Misfits one the best and had to wonder where Bob had found it – but no questions were asked for fear of breaking the careful silence.

It wasn’t until the car pulled up to the curb in front of Frank’s house that Bob finally spoke.

“Look,” he began, shutting off the engine. “I know we’re not really, uh… friends.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel awkwardly. “But, um… if Mr. Way is being, uh, _inappropriate_… then maybe you should tell someone.”

“He wasn’t,” Frank corrected quickly. He might have hated Gerard and his stupid, soft eyes, but he wasn’t about to ruin his reputation out of spite. “I’ve known him since I was four. He always does that when I cry.” Then, after he realized his mistake, he verbally corrected, “He always used to do that.”

Bob didn’t seem convinced, and he stared at the steering wheel hard, like he was deciding something.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He looked Frank in the eyes, openly wary. “Because, like, if you’re uncomfortable-“

“I’m sure. We were just having a fight. Thanks for the save, though. And the ride home. I owe you one.”

Bob looked like he didn’t know what to do – like he had half a mind to stop Frank from getting out of his car and remaining in what he must have considered denial over the situation. He probably thought Frank was too ashamed to admit that he’d been sexually assaulted or something. Frank almost wished he didn’t have a conscience so that he could play along and get Gerard fired. Unfortunately, he did have a conscience. Plus, at the very least, he didn’t want Mikey to be mad at him.

“I’ll see you Monday,” Frank said as he got out of Bob’s car. “Thanks again for the ride.”

Bob nodded, still looking unsure, but pulled away from the curb and out of Frank’s business just the same.

If only Frank didn’t have a conscience. If only.

~

At midnight on Sunday night – Monday morning – Frank awoke to the alarm he’d set and immediately called Mikey, who answered on the fourth ring.

“What?” His voice was rough from sleep and he sounded irritated.

Frank was undeterred.

“_Happy birthday to you_,” he crooned, a small smile on his lips as he did so. “_Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Mikey. Happy birthday to you_.”

Mikey was quiet for a couple of seconds before sighing and muttering, “Yeah, yeah. It’s my birthday. Thanks.”

“Any time, Mikeyway.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“Frank, can I talk to you for a moment?” Mrs. Carlisle asked as Frank was making his way to lunch. “It’ll only take a moment of your time.”

Frank was instantly nervous, immediately thinking back to everything he could have possibly done to get himself in trouble. “Sure,” he said. Internally, he was calculating the likelihood that he’d somehow managed to piss her off in their limited interactions.

He followed Mrs. Carlisle to her classroom. She shut the door behind him and sat down at her desk, gesturing for Frank to take the seat in front of her with a manicured hand. Uh-oh.

“Did I do something wrong?” Frank asked. He needed to start thinking of excuses and fast if he wanted to get out of whatever trouble he’d somehow gotten himself into.

Mrs. Carlisle smiled genuinely, and Frank felt some of his worry ebb away. “I just want to talk to you about the play,” she said. “Please, have a seat.”

Frank slid into the desk nervously.

“Your audition was very good, but it’s come to my attention that you’ve never done Drama Club before, and since you’re a senior, I wanted to know how committed you were before I put you on the list for call-backs.”

Frank blinked. She wanted to give him a call back?

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

“As you already know, we’re doing a musical this year. It’s going to be a lot of work. There will be practice every day after school and we’ll need help with the set on a few weekends here and there. This play will be a rather large time commitment.” Mrs. Carlisle folded her hands on her desk and took on a serious expression. “It’s not uncommon for seniors to just coast their way through their last year of high school, but that won’t fly when it comes to the Drama Club. You’re either all in or you’re all out. I had to pull a lot of strings to get the administration to let us put on this particular play and it means a lot to me, personally. I want to do this right. So, before I put you on the list for call backs, I need to know that you’re all in and committed to doing what it takes to make this a good production.”

Frank thought for a moment. Really, he hadn’t ever intended to do the play. He had mostly just been looking for excuses to get away from Gerard. However, his art assignment – “illustrate happiness” – had really gotten him thinking about just how empty his life was. It wasn’t like he had anything going on after school, anyway. Why not do the play? If nothing else, it got him out of any social obligations that happened to fall on weekdays.

“I want to be in the play,” he told Mrs. Carlisle after a long pause. “I’m committed.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Mrs. Carlisle’s serious expression was slowly turning back into a smile. “This is your last chance to back out if you wanted to.”

“Sure,” he said, and then quickly corrected himself. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Frank took the empty seat next to Bob, who liked to sit at the back table by the window. Neither of them said anything, but Bob nodded at Frank slightly, as though to show that this was an okay turn of events.

Gerard began class sitting backward on a chair he’d pulled into the aisle from an unoccupied table, arms crossed over the back as he looked over his students. He was smiling a dazed kind of smile, as though he were dreaming something sweet in real-time. Frank was irritated by the elder Way brother’s calm. He folded his own arms over his stomach unconsciously, as though to protect the anxiety that lived there.

“Your next assignment is to depict an inescapable situation,” Gerard said when the bell had rung and everyone was seated. “I’m not talking, ‘oh-crap-there-are-no-windows-or-doors’. I mean that I want you to create a scenario that is uniquely inescapable, be it a conversation with your fat Aunt Martha who likes to pinch your cheeks or a pit full of snakes between you and the last slice of cake – though I recommend not using either of those ideas, since they’re mine.”

The girl who was always eager to answer Gerard’s questions – the one Frank had internally cataloged as a fucking nerd – giggled as though what Mr. Way had said was witty. As she nervously twirled her blonde hair around her finger, Frank decided that he hated her.

“The objective of this project is to make the viewer feel trapped. Whatever you choose to use to create that effect is up to you, but in order to get full points, you need to generate something close to that sensation.”

As the students moved about the room, collecting their materials, Frank bitterly imagined himself turning in a portrait of Gerard sitting backward in his chair, that stupid grin plastered on his face.

~

There was a sheet covering something in the back of the classroom on the following Monday when Frank entered the art room before eighth hour.

“What’s that?” the blonde girl that Frank hated asked Gerard.

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d told her, and Frank could have sworn that the elder Way brother’s eyes flicked over to where he was sitting for a brief second.

He must have been imagining it.

Call backs were immediately after school in Mrs. Carlisle’s room. Of the original twenty-something kids who tried out, there were only six with call backs. Among them were Frank, Brendon, a guy with long hair and a fedora, a girl with orange hair and long bangs over her forehead, another guy who slouched so deeply into his hoodie that Frank was surprised he didn’t get lost in it, and Ryan – surprisingly enough, given how nervous he’d been during his initial audition.

As the school play was a musical, those with call backs needed to prove that they could sing to officially get the roles that Mrs. Carlisle had in mind for them. They would each have to perform a song. Frank would have been lying if he said he wasn’t a little nervous.

Brendon went first. The song he picked out was, “You Make Me Feel So Young” by Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, the kid nailed every note perfectly, making Frank more and more self-conscious with every passing second.

Ryan, true to form, followed right after Brendon. He sang “Fill Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations, and even though he looked like he could have thrown up the entire time he was performing, his voice was quirky in the cutest way. Frank had the overwhelming urge to wrap him in a soft blanket and a hug.

Frank decided to go next, partially because having to watch everyone else perform was making him ridiculously nervous and because he wanted to go home and take a nap before dinner.

Mrs. Carlisle handed him his guitar case – which he’d stashed in her room that morning – as he reached the front of the room. He took several seconds to uncertainly adjust himself on the stool she’d set out for him, and then he took a deep breath and began to strum the slow, deliberate opening chords of the song he’d chosen.

“_All the fear and the fire of the end of the world_,” he sang, his vocals so delicate that, were they tangible, they’d shatter at the slightest touch. “_Happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl / Happens great, happens sweet /Happily, I’m unfazed here too / Wasteland, Baby, I’m in love, I’m in love with you.._.”

The music echoed throughout the quiet of the room.

“…_All the things yet to come are the things that have passed / Like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass / Like the bonfire that burns / That all words in the fight fell to / Wasteland, Baby, I’m in love, I’m in love with you…”_

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank could see Mrs. Carlisle smiling at him, her eyes twinkling as she did so. She seemed genuinely glad that he was there. It was kind of weird.

“…_And I love, too, that love soon might end_,” he sang, his strumming picking up slightly as the chorus arrived. “_Be known in its aching / Shown in the shaking / Lately of my wasteland, Baby.._.”

The music felt like poetry, felt like pain, felt like dying and living, suffocation and the first breath of air to the lungs. It felt like being rubbed raw. It felt like release. Hozier really knew his shit.

“_…Be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking / Though quaking, though crazy / That’s just wasteland, Baby.._.”

He was thinking too much and not at all. Gerard had left, had majorly fucked up his life.

Why was he thinking of Gerard right now?

Gerard had suddenly reappeared and reopened long-closed wounds. It felt like Frank was cracking open. It felt like the end of the world.

“…_And that day that we’ll watch the death of the sun / To the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on / And you’ll gaze unafraid as they sob from the city roofs…_.”

It felt like a beginning.

_“_…_Wasteland, Baby, I’m in love, I’m in love with you…”_

This time, Frank sought out Gerard.

The elder Way brother was quietly grading papers at his desk when Frank walked in, sat his backpack on the nearest table, and said, “I didn’t go to your college graduation.”

Gerard jumped, surprised at the sudden company. He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, diverting his full attention to Frank.

“You were sick,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Oh.”

Frank grabbed a chair from one of the tables and pulled it up to Gerard’s desk, several feet still between them as he sat down. There was no risk of them accidentally touching that way.

“I told my mom I was sick because I didn’t want to see you,” Frank admitted. “I stayed home and reread _The Catcher in the Rye_.”

Gerard looked down at the ring on his thumb. The emotion around his eyes tightened, as though it was trying to protect him, and his brow was creased with the strain of taking in the new information.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked after several moments. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

“No,” Frank said, guilt punching him directly in the heart.

The silence between them stretched for almost a full minute.

“Look, you don’t have an excuse for never answering or reaching out to me, but it’s not like you were the only one to blame. I went out of my way to be at work, or at my dad’s, or I just played sick. I was angry – fuck, I’m still angry. But it’s shitty to have to try and dodge you, especially when we have to see each other pretty much every day.” Frank was breathing heavily, nerves getting the best of his lungs. “I’m suggesting a truce,” he said. “Just to make things bearable until I graduate.”

Gerard sighed and scrubbed his face roughly with his hand, standing from his seat. “I was going to try and pull you aside sometime today, anyway. I want to show you something,” he said.

He removed the sheet from what he’d been hiding during the day to reveal a large canvas depicting a black and white background and three colored silhouettes of children – three little boys. The shortest silhouette was painted with the colors of a glorious sunset, and he glowed as he ran through the gray grass, casting light instead of shadow. The second tallest silhouette was painted deep blueish black of the universe, dappled with the light of a million stars as he walked, carefully following behind the boy made of sunset. The third boy was the tallest, and he was painted as an endless ocean, fish swimming around in his head and torso like organs in the body. He was standing still, watching the other two as he leaned against a black and white tree.

“This was my senior showcase project,” he told Frank. “I think you can guess who this is supposed to be.”

Frank knew what he meant. The boy made of sunset was himself, the boy made of the night sky was Mikey, and the boy made of the ocean was Gerard. He had painted their childhood with the whimsy they had all once achieved just by closing their eyes and daring to imagine.

"So, you didn't forget about me. You were just being an asshole."

Gerard scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "I already told you. I was-"

"-In a bad place," Frank finished. "I know what you said."

“Look, you were right. I don’t have an excuse for not keeping in touch in the beginning. And, maybe it sounds kind of lame to say that I was in a bad place for a long time, but I was.” Gerard took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired. “The fact of the matter is that I never forgot you existed and I never meant to cut you out of my life. Maybe I took for granted that everything was fine, or maybe I was just pretending that it was. But that doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you.”

“It just means you’re an asshole." Frank shrugged. "I am too." He felt tired, and it ran all the way into his bones.

Gerard sat down in his chair and scooted it so that he was close enough to Frank that their knees were almost touching.

“I don’t want to just call a truce. I want to be friends. I don’t have a lot of people in my life that I care about, but you’re absolutely one of them and I want to do whatever it takes to make things right again.” Gerard’s eyes were pleading as he begged, “Please, Frankie.”

Frank could feel heat – a heat that was different from rage-heat – spread through his chest. Part of him still wanted to tell Gerard to fuck off. The other part desperately wanted to forgive. He decided to aim for somewhere in the middle.

“I won’t make any promises,” he said, finally. “But Mikey would kick my ass if I didn’t at least _try_. So, I guess… I guess we could try to be friends.”

Gerard smiled a real smile that reached his eyes, and the softness returned.

Frank grabbed a notebook from Gerard’s desk, tore out a piece of paper, and hastily wrote his number with Gerard’s pen. “This time,” Frank said, handing him the page, “you text me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a slut for constructive criticism.


	3. Act One, Scene Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ya go, kids. MAJOR editing has occurred here, so if you read this before when it was still on my other account, get ready.

September bled into October in the same way that the sun bleeds into the horizon – aesthetically pleasing, but inevitably yielding to the cold. Frank _hated_ the cold.

On a particularly chilly Tuesday in the second week of October, Gerard stopped him after class and offered to give him a ride home after play practice.

“I have to stay a little late and catch up on grading,” he’d said. There was a small, sheepish smile set in his lips, and he was hunched at the shoulders, as though he was trying to make himself look smaller. “Plus, I need to head over to my parents’ place to pick up some of my stuff, anyway, so it’s on the way.”

Frank’s gut reaction was to say no. He tried to avoid situations where chitchat was required as a general rule, but small talk with Gerard would be nothing short of painful – possibly torturous. Sure, he’d agreed to try and be friendly, but it wasn’t like all the years of hard feelings had just dissolved overnight. He was still very much hurt, and it was difficult to be around Gerard when everything he did pissed Frank off slightly more than the average person.

Just as he was about to decline, the wind picked up and slapped a tree branch into the window beside Gerard’s desk.

“That would be great,” Frank’s mouth declared as he groaned internally, and he forced a smile. “Thanks.”

The school production was entitled _The Death of a Bachelor_, and after briefly skimming the script that had been handed to him as he entered the drama club meeting, it was almost immediately evident to Frank exactly why Mrs. Carlisle had had to jump through so many hoops to get it approved: it was a gay musical. Well, gayer than the typical musical.

Taking place in the early 2000’s, _The Death of a Bachelor_ followed the story of two childhood friends who fell in love and inevitably separated in a life-altering and tragic break up, which divided their friends and left them pining for each other until their deaths at the end of the play. It was a major bummer, but overall, incredibly compelling. Plus, the music wasn’t bad.

Mrs. Carlisle handed out copies of the cast list as the drama club members took their seats. At the top of the page, Brendon was listed as one of the leads: Jack, half of the gay couple that ends up marrying a woman after being rejected by his counterpart, Finn. Frank wasn’t surprised. He would be an excellent lead. What _was_ surprising was the fact that Ryan was cast opposite Brendon as the love interest, Finn. Frank could practically pinpoint the exact moment when Ryan found his name on the page because all color drained from his face and his eyes grew dull with anxiety. The poor guy could hardly read lines in front of three people in auditions. How was he going to be able to sing in front of a full auditorium?

Frank’s part was listed just under Brendon and Ryan’s names. He was cast as Benedict, the long-time friend of both Finn and Jack that was not only suffering through the suicide of his wife but also the impossible choice between his two closest companions. The part seemed simple enough, only really requiring him to act unhappy – which was his norm anyway – so Frank wasn’t particularly worried about his ability to perform well enough. It was all the lines he’d have to memorize that had him a bit concerned.

“If anyone has changed their mind about being in this production, now is the time to say so,” Mrs. Carlisle said. Though she looked around the entirety of the room, her eyes seemed to linger on Frank for a fraction of a second more than everyone else.

No one spoke of objections.

“Alright, then. Now, about individual musical numbers. They aren’t stated on the sheet that has your parts listed, but if you look to the back of your scripts, you’ll find the sheet music for each number. Everyone will be required to sing at some point in the play. So, again, I must ask if anyone is having second thoughts about their involvement with the play.” Mrs. Carlisle scanned the room expectantly, like she was just waiting for someone to disappoint her.

There were still no objections.

“Excellent. We start read-throughs tomorrow after school.”

Gerard drove a black Camry, and it was probably nicer than every item Frank owned combined. He was intimidated just looking at the thing, let alone the prospect of getting inside of it. What if he got it dirty or something? Then, he remembered that the car belonged to Gerard – a man who once wore the same set of clothes for an entire summer simply because Mikey bet that he couldn’t do it – and stopped worrying.

The seats were made of a dark gray faux leather that squeaked a little when Frank sat down. He was nervous, and he was sure it showed in the way his fingers couldn’t seem to figure out the damn buckle. How hard is it to click the thing in the fucking buckle? Why was he having so much trouble with it?

The engine came to life when Frank was finally situated, and an uneasy silence fell between them as they pulled onto the main road. The hum of the engine filled Frank’s ears, amplified a thousand times by his anxiety for the situation. It was hard to concentrate in the oppressive awkwardness.

Gerard broke the silence after about five minutes, much to Frank’s relief and then immediate regret. “How was practice?” he asked, blatantly beginning the small talk.

Frank almost wished he was drowning in uncomfortable silence again. Anything was better than meaningless, idle chit chat.

“It was fine,” he replied shortly.

“What did you guys do today?”

“We got our parts.”

“Did you get a lead role?”

“Nope.”

“Did you want one?”

“Nope.”

There was a brief pause in which Frank almost let himself believe that Gerard would stop trying to talk to him, but his hope was in vain.

“When did you get in to theater?” he asked. His eyebrows were scrunched, like he was trying to understand something.

“I dunno.”

“I just mean that you never seemed to have any interest in it before.”

“Things change.”

More silence.

“What made you want to try out?”

Frank briefly considered answering honestly, but immediately thought against it. Telling someone that you joined a club just to get away from them was probably not a friendly thing to do.

“There’s this kid on my bus that wanted me to try out,” he said instead. “He, like, annoyed me into submission.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Not really. He just kind of follows me around sometimes.” Then, thoughtlessly, he added, “I don’t really have any friends.”

Fuck. Now he’d opened up a whole new shithole of a conversation topic. Why was he such a fucking idiot?

Gerard seemed shocked. “What about Mikey?” he asked. “You’ve been best friends with Mikey since we were kids!”

“I dunno. I don’t really see him much anymore. I mean, yeah, we text a lot, but I never see him. I had to mail him his present because he couldn’t be bothered to come home and spend his birthday with his family.” Then, when Frank remembered that he wasn’t actually Mikey’s family, he added, “Or me.”

“You don’t spend time with anyone outside of school?”

“Nope.”

Gerard seemed to be having a hard time processing this information. It was like he didn’t realize just how hard to be around that Frank truly was.

“Have you tried talking to the other kids in your class?” he asked.

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like being by myself.”

Gerard looked at Frank out of the corner of his eye and there was worry in his brow. Frank tried not to be irritated by that – what right did Gerard have to be worried for Frank? – and looked out the window instead of meeting his gaze.

“Is that why you painted a guitar for your happiness project?”

Frank shrugged and offered a noncommittal, “Sure.”

This time, the silence that grew between them was thick and entirely suffocating, as though it congealed as soon as it took up space in Frank’s lungs. He might have sighed at the ridiculous delicacy of the situation, rolled his eyes at the way Gerard’s expression glazed over like he was trying to hide his emotion, or even opened the door and jumped just to extract himself from the tension. The air in his lungs wouldn’t let him do that, though. It was too hard to breathe for him to give any kind of sigh worthy of his exasperation and his lungs were too heavy for him to move. He could have still rolled his eyes, but the moment for that had passed and it no longer felt like the right course of action. He had no choice but to engage.

“I spend most of my free time playing guitar,” Frank spoke up reluctantly. “It’s pretty much the only thing I really like to do besides reading.”

“Are you any good?”

“I dunno. I like to think so.”

“I was never any good at playing guitar. My mom got me one when I was twelve, but I could never make myself care enough to learn.”

“I remember. She gave it to me after you moved out.”

Gerard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really? I thought she sold it.”

“Nope. It’s in my basement somewhere. I played on it for about two years before I saved up enough to get an electric guitar from a secondhand store.” Frank did not mention that he’d coveted that guitar and the fact that it had belonged to Gerard up until the point when it became too painful to look at in his heartache. He had only bought a new guitar so that he wouldn’t have to see Gerard behind his eyes every time he strummed a chord.

Gerard seemed to think for a moment before a small smile grew over his lips and he said, “Did I ever tell you what I named my guitar?”

“No. What’d you name it?”

The elder Way brother huffed out a short laugh through his nose. “I named it Jareth. After the Goblin King, you know? From _Labyrinth_.”

“I’m not surprised,” Frank said. “You’ve always been obsessed with Bowie.”

Frank was surprised to discover that the Camry was pulling up to the curb in front of his house a moment later. That had been a very odd ten minutes, sometimes feeling like an eternity and sometimes passing like mere seconds. Time with Gerard was like that.

“Thanks for the ride,” Frank said, unbuckling and pulling the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. “I hate having to walk home.”

Gerard smiled, and he wasn’t annoyingly sheepish, which Frank appreciated. “Any time,” he said.

Frank opened the car door and stepped out onto the lawn. “Bye,” he said.

“I’ll see you later, Frankie.”

Then, Frank closed the door and went inside his house, furiously rubbing away the tiny smile that had appeared on his face without his permission.

~

On Thursday, amidst the ridiculous noise in the cafeteria, Frank heard someone speak to him.

“Is it cool if I sit here?” Bob asked. He was holding a tacky orange lunch tray, mystery meatloaf and a pudding cup on its surface, and he looked uncomfortable.

“Uh, sure,” Frank said, though it came out sounding like a question in his confusion. “It’s a free country.”

“Cool. Thanks.” Some of the tension in Bob’s shoulders seemed to evaporate as he sat down across from Frank.

Frank nodded, still perplexed, but went on eating his own food. While it was surprising that Bob wanted to sit at Frank’s table, he wasn’t annoying or anything. There were far worse people to spend a lunch period with.

~

“Run away with me,” Brendon pleaded, voice full of passion as he read his lines. “I love you. I _need _you.”

Ryan, sitting opposite Frank in the circle of desks in Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom, was slouching low in his seat, obviously embarrassed. “Let go of me,” he read weakly. “If you love me, let me go.”

Frank tried his best not to cringe. The way Ryan read his lines was almost painfully awkward.

At first, Frank had hoped that maybe Ryan would warm up to reading his lines in front of the other cast members over time. However, it had been about a week and a half since the first read-through and Ryan still sucked.

Mrs. Carlisle must have thought the same thing because as soon as Ryan finished his line, she said, “That’s enough for today.” The bags under her eyes made her look stressed. “Frank, I believe you’re scheduled to work on your solo with me today. If you wouldn’t mind, could you stay behind?”

“Sure,” Frank said. It seemed obvious that it didn’t matter much if he minded or not. Mrs. Carlisle was not a woman to disappoint. Besides, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

Mrs. Carlisle was no pianist, and while she had a vague understanding of how to play, it was incredibly difficult for Frank to keep up with her as she played the melody. It all sounded off and just plain _not right_.

Frank’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he finished his third run-through, and he excused himself for a moment to check it.

He had a text from Gerard. **Ended up staying late again.** it said. **Need a ride home?**

Frank had half a mind to decline, given how awkward the last ride had been, but then he remembered how much he hated walking and that it was Friday. If things got too weird, he wouldn’t have to see Gerard for another two days.

**Yeah,** he replied. **I’ll meet up with you when I’m done with practice.**

“Are you getting excited for your birthday?” Gerard asked as they sped down the highway. His hair glowed richly in the late afternoon light as it blew around his face, air wind invading through the open windows. “It’s only about a week and a half away, right? Halloween?”

“Yeah, it’s on Wednesday.”

“You’re turning eighteen, too! Are you excited to be a legal adult?”

“Meh,” Frank said, and he shrugged. “Not particularly. It just means more expectations. I’ll have to pick a college, get my own car, pay for gas and shit. I mean, I already pay for gas when I use Mom’s car, but now I’ll have to pay for my own gas, which is somehow worse.”

Gerard laughed a little, the sound warm against the chill of the breeze. “There’s more to being an adult than just bills and expectations,” he said.

Frank was skeptical. “Like what?”

“Well, you can eat pretty much anything you want, and your mom can’t tell you not to.”

Frank huffed out shortly through his nose in place of a laugh. “Is that all? My mom is never home, man. I already do whatever I want.”

Gerard thought for a moment. “Well, you can buy lottery tickets. And you can go into sex stores.”

Frank snorted – actually fucking snorted – and choked on a laugh. “Oh, well,” he said sarcastically. “If I’d only known that ahead of time, maybe I’d have properly prepared myself to be excited for my birthday.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Gerard was smiling widely. Frank could have sworn that he saw literal flakes of sunshine glinting between the elder Way brother’s teeth, like there was magic in that stupid grin of his. “Somebody had to make sure you enjoy your birthday.”

For some unknown reason, something in Frank’s stomach did a flip. He wondered if he was maybe getting sick or something. As he watched Gerard from the corner of his eye and his stomach continued doing its unsanctioned flips, Frank decided that he probably was sick. After all, he didn’t even like Gerard that much.

He was definitely sick.

~

“Frankie,” Linda cooed into her son’s ear. She pushed some of the hair off his forehead and planted a kiss there. “Happy birthday, Sweet Boy. It’s time to wake up!”

Frank groaned and attempted to turn over, but Linda was not having it. She used her superhuman mom powers to prevent his rolling over into the pillows.

“Come on, Baby,” she said. “I have a surprise for you downstairs, but you’ve got to get up.”

“Five more minutes,” Frank pleaded.

Were his eyes open, he might have seen his mother assume the Mom Pose™, complete with her hands on her hips and a single eyebrow raised. “You’ve got five more _seconds_ before I roll your happy ass out of bed,” she said lovingly. Then, she ripped the covers from his body and threw them across the room. “Up, up, up!”

Reluctantly, Frank did so.

“What’s the surprise?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood wearily.

“It’s a surprise, Frankie. I can’t just tell you.”

Frank attempted a glare at his mother, but he was too tired to have full control over his face, so he looked like he was squinting instead.

It was all Frank could do not to fall down the stairs, eyes too tired to perceive depth the way the normally did. _It’s your day off!_ they seemed to say. _Why are you even awake?_ Frank had to admit, he was wondering the same thing. However, there was no way his mother was going to let him go back to bed, and she looked weirdly excited anyway. Whatever the surprise was, it was promising.

It wasn’t until Frank turned the corner from the foyer at his mother’s insistence and entered the kitchen that he realized what the surprise was.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Frank blinked hard and rubbed his eyes, hoping that they weren’t playing tricks on him. When he opened them again, Mikey was still sitting at the kitchen table, sly smile on his face as he reclined in his chair.

“I’m still sleeping,” Frank reasoned. “This isn’t real. You’re not really here.”

“I’m really here, Idiot. Happy birthday, Frankie.”

Mikey stood from his chair and held out his arms awkwardly, like he was unsure if a hug was the way to go in that moment. Frank wasted no time in bounding forward, tackling his oldest and best friend in a death-grip of a hug.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” Frank said, voice distant in his shock. “I thought you weren’t coming home ‘til Thanksgiving.”

Mikey shrugged into the hug. “Surprise, kid.”

Frank’s birthday was a special day. Starting the year his parents divorced, Frank was allowed to stay home from school and spend the day around the house. Then, in the evening, he would have dinner with both of his parents – together at the same time. The presents were nice, too, of course, but the most important thing was that his parents actually spoke to each other without hostility whenever they were celebrating the anniversary of their only son’s birth.

This birthday was extra special. He was going to spend the day with Mikey, who had driven five hours home from college just to spend Frank’s birthday with him. Frank hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his best friend until he was sitting in the passenger seat of Mikey’s car, smiling unconsciously at the mere presence of his best friend beside him.

The first stop in their birthday celebration schedule was, evidently, a tattoo parlor. Frank had been confused at first, having assumed that Mikey had wanted to touch up one of his own tattoos. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but whatever. They got to spend time together.

However, that was not Mikey’s intention. Frank was getting a tattoo, he insisted, and Mikey wanted to pay for it.

“You’re not serious,” Frank had insisted.

Mikey gave him a look that effectively said, “Bitch, try me,” and that conversation was effectively ended.

The tattoo parlor was run by a guy named Pete, who was pretty in a very “jock-meets-punk-rocker-and-has-a-fling-resulting-in-a-child-going-through-their-emo-phase” kind of way. He was cool, with straight dark hair hanging over his forehead, an impish smile, and kohl rimmed eyes that watched Mikey with intense interest.

Ultimately, Frank decided to get a scorpion tattooed on his neck just above where the collar would cover it. “That way, I can never get a real job,” he’d joked.

The process hurt, kind of like someone was taking the edge of a razor blade and scraping off layers of skin, but it wasn’t entirely unbearable, and Pete played good music as he worked. Plus, with Mikey sitting beside him, offering encouraging half-smiles every now and then, Frank hardly even registered the pain.

When the tattoo was finished after an hour and a half, Pete declared his work to be worth $40.

“That’s ridiculous,” Mikey protested. “It looks nice and you took your time on it. Did you use a diseased needle or something?”

Pete laughed a full laugh that crinkled his eyes in the corners. “Nothing like that,” he insisted. “Usually, something this size and with this amount of detail would be worth about $80. However, you can pay me the $40 and maybe go out with me sometime, and we’ll call it even.”

“Uh, okay,” Mikey said, surprise etched into his face. He rubbed the back of his neck in a rare show of awkwardness. “That sounds…sure.”

Mikey gave Pete his credit card to pay for the tattoo, then scribbled his phone number on a sticky note from the desk, all the while glancing at Pete as though to make sure it wasn’t some kind of joke. The artist just smiled sweetly back every time he caught Mikey’s eye.

A bashful smile crossed Mikey’s face as they exited the tattoo parlor and remained there as they drove towards the next location.

The second destination of the day was the park near Frank’s subdivision where he, Mikey, and Gerard had spent many afternoons and birthday parties in their childhood. It was calm and quiet there in the early afternoon, especially so because it was a weekday. Frank and Mikey perched themselves on the old, well-worn swings as they’d done countless times in their younger days.

“So, how are things?” Mikey asked nonspecifically as they rocked back and forth on their respective swings.

“Which things?” Frank scuffed his converse into the sand below his feet as he’d always done. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Mikey thought for a moment. “School, I guess. How’s school?”

“School is fine. I’m not failing or anything, so I take that as a win.”

“And how’s the play going?”

“It’s alright. There’s this one kid who can’t read his lines for shit, though. I mean, he can _read_, but apparently not with any kind of emotion. It kinda seems like he doesn’t want to be there.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah. Plus, he has a lead role.”

“Dude, that blows.”

“Yeah, I know.”

There was silence between them as Mikey stared intently into the tree line. He scrunched his nose and scratched at the darker hair behind his ears, and it seemed like he was thinking hard about something. When he finally spoke after a full minute of silence, he asked, “How are things with Gerard?”

There it was. Frank had been hoping that Mikey wouldn’t bring up his brother and that they could just enjoy the day as though Gerard didn’t exist. Couldn’t he have just one day where he didn’t have to think about that stupid red hair and those hazel eyes?

“They’re okay, I guess,” Frank said, voice quiet so as not to punctuate the disappointment within it.

“Define ‘okay’.” Mikey was looking at Frank with an unreadable expression, like this was a very important question and he didn’t want to sway the answer with his face. “What does ‘okay’ entail?”

“Well… I’m not actively avoiding him, so I guess that’s good.” Frank shrugged and kicked hard at the sand. “I dunno, Mikey. He’s given me a ride home from school a few times, but I wouldn’t say we’re best friends or anything.”

Mikey looked to the tree line again, and his voice took on a tone of confession. “You know, he called me a while back,” he said. “About you, I mean.”

“What?” Frank stopped swinging and sat motionless. “Was he, like… telling on me, or something?”

“What? No.” Mikey looked at him like he was an idiot. “What are we? Five? No. He was just upset. Woke me up at the ass-crack of night, crying over the phone. He was pretty much incoherent, but I could sort of make out the phrase, ‘Frankie hates me,’ and several instances of the word ‘fuck’.”

“I don’t _hate_ him,” Frank said weakly, looking to his worn-out converse, which were coated in fine layer of sand and dirt. He buried them further into the soft ground. “I think, anyway. I just don’t like him a whole lot.”

Mikey sighed through his nose. “I know.” No one said anything for a few more seconds before he continued, “I’m only bringing this up because it’s getting really hard to be in the middle of you two. He’s an ass and he’s really bad about isolating himself, but he’s still my brother. And so are you.”

“I just… I’ve never considered Gerard to be family. He was always kind of more than that, I guess. I was in love with him before I knew what love was.” The words tasted like vinegar as he spit them out. “But I was never that special to him and that shit sucks.”

“Just because he wasn’t interested in you romantically doesn’t mean you weren’t important.”

Frank laughed bitterly. “Maybe, but the fact that he stopped talking to me altogether after he moved out suggests that I wasn’t worth shit.”

“He’s just a dick about showing people he cares about them, especially with the people he’s closest to,” Mikey insisted. “Take it from my mom. She didn’t even know he was moving back to town until he’d already unpacked all his shit.”

“I heard about that.”

“He cares about you. He’s just a dick. It’s nothing personal.”

Frank looked at Mikey – at the blonde hair and the brown eyes and the sharp jawline that he’d known for so long – and then looked back at his shoes. Mikey just didn’t get it and Frank didn’t want to talk about Gerard anymore.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, can we talk about something else? It’s my birthday. I don’t wanna be bummed out today.”

Mikey sighed, but agreed. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s see about getting you your first legal pack of cigarettes.”

~

“Where were you yesterday?” Brendon asked the very second Frank entered his eyeline. He plopped down into the bus seat clumsily, eager for attention. “Also, is that a tattoo?”

“Yeah. I got it for my birthday,” Frank told him. He wasn’t immediately annoyed by Brendon’s presence, which was weird. He was still sort of floating on the high of spending time with his best friend, who was on his way back to college as Frank was on his way to school. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Does it hurt?” Brendon asked, reaching to poke at the exposed ink.

Frank swatted the kid’s hand away. “Yeah, it hurts. Don’t touch it.”

“Sorry. Did it hurt while you were getting it?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna get another one?”

“Probably.”

“What do you think you’ll get?”

“I dunno yet.”

“Hey, Ryan!” Brendon interjected, turning around completely in the bus seat to face his friend. “Check out Frank’s tattoo!”

Ryan looked surprised to be addressed, and his face was paler than usual. He glanced quickly at Frank, and then back to his lap, mumbling, “Looks cool.”

“Are you okay?” Frank asked, the words out of his mouth before he realized that he had bothered to form them.

“I’m fine,” Ryan said, his voice oddly harsh and definitive for such a sweet noise. “Just a little car sick.”

Frank could believe it. The poor kid looked like he might throw up.

“Oh, hey! Frank!” Gerard called as Frank was exiting the classroom after the final bell.

Reluctantly, he turned at the sound of his name and reentered the room. Gerard was rooting around behind his desk, things clattering as they made contact with the floor.

“I got you something for your birthday,” he said.

Frank felt his eyes widen, surprise flitting between his dark lashes. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” he insisted.

“Nonsense,” Gerard said, producing a package and setting it on his desk. “You only turn eighteen once.”

Frank approached the desk and observed his present with latent curiosity. The package was a little bigger than Frank’s hand and carefully wrapped in yellow paper, a small white bow taped to its corner. It wasn’t heavy when he picked it up.

“What is it?” he asked, flicking the bow between his fingers.

“Open it up and see,” Gerard prompted. “I think you’ll like it.”

Frank didn’t have to be told twice. He tore the paper off quickly, crumpling it beneath his fingers and tossing it onto the desk. He was temporarily rendered speechless by the contents.

“Do you like it?” Gerard asked, his voice earnest.

“Yeah, I… I love it,” Frank muttered. He meant it, too.

In his hand, Frank held a picture frame with a photo of his four-year-old self, six-year-old Mikey, and nine-year-old Gerard laughing as they ran about the backyard. Capes were slung about their necks as they pretended to be heroes. It was like he was looking at a frozen moment of his childhood. All he needed to do was close his eyes and he could smell the grass, feel the wind on his face and in his hair. If he concentrated hard enough, he might even be able to grasp a small piece of that unending happiness that he had once known in innocence but lost to the harsher realities of the adult world.

“It’s not much, but I found it in some old scrapbooks at my parents’ house and thought you’d like it,” Gerard said. “Happy birthday, Frankie.”

Frank hugged him quickly, because it was a nice gift, damnit, and then quickly restored personal space.

“Thanks.” Frank smiled with the corner of his mouth. “It’s perfect.”

“Any time,” Gerard replied, slightly breathless.

Frank didn’t notice the goosebumps that had risen over his arms until he was half way to Mrs. Carlisle’s classroom for practice.

~

November arrived with all the force of a freight train to the face. The weather had been growing colder in small increments throughout October, the day-time temperatures dropping a few degrees at a time and the afternoons favoring a slight chill. However, with the appearance of November, the weather dived to just barely above freezing and the sky appeared dull even on sunny days. Winter was coming – however cliché _Game of Thrones_ might have made that expression – and it sucked ass.

The Monday of the first full week of November was particularly cold, and it put Frank in a bad mood. It wasn’t just any bad mood, either. This was the kind of grumpiness that settled deep into his bones and etched a resting bitch face over his usual expressions. Were he a woman, dude-bros everywhere would be asking if he was on his period because of his hostility. It was the kind of mood that made him want to scream and cry at the same time, indignant at the prospect of doing his part to be a functional member of society when he’d really rather be doing pretty much anything else.

Frank really hated when it was cold.

Frank glared at his lunch bitterly, not so much irritated with the cheese sandwich as he was with his very existence. Being alive was particularly inconvenient at that moment. There was a chill in his spine that he just couldn’t shake and it was seriously pissing him off.

“You look like someone pissed in your cheerios this morning,” Bob noted unhelpfully as he sat down across from Frank with his lunch. “What’s up.

“It’s fucking cold,” Frank grumbled, stabbing his sandwich with a nearby carrot repeatedly as though the thing owed him money.

Bob raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“I hate being cold. I’d rather have sex with Donald Trump than be cold.”

“You’re gonna have to put that into context for me. Do you dislike Trump or do you have a weird crush on him?”

“I have a weird crush on Paul McCartney. If given the opportunity, I’d gladly light Donald Trump on fire. He’s a racist, misogynistic, homophobic swamp monster and somehow looks like he smells like the inside of a medicine cabinet.”

“Hold on. What does the inside of a medicine cabinet smell like?”

“Peroxide, fish oil vitamins, and the sudden, crippling fear of mortality that overcomes you every time you look at all the shit you’ve collected just to try and buy yourself a little more time on the planet we’re slowly killing.”

“You’re really fucking morbid today.”

“I would literally rather have Donald Trump’s nasty-ass orange dick thrust inside of me than be cold.”

Bob choked on his lasagna. “I’m trying to eat, Frank,” he said between coughing.

“You asked what was wrong. This is what you get.”

“Look, just try not to think about it.”

“I can’t just not think about being cold. I’m fucking cold. It’s all-consuming. I’m dying. I hate being cold.”

“I swear, you might be a bigger drama queen than Mr. Way,” Bob said, pointing his fork at Frank accusingly.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Remember when Mr. Way started crying actual tears because Vic said he’d never seen _Labyrinth_?”

Frank nodded in the affirmative.

“You’ve surpassed that. Like, Mr. Way is pretty consistently a level ten diva. You’re hovering somewhere around a level fifteen.”

“Fuck off, Bryar,” Frank grumbled. Then, after a few seconds, “Jesus fucking Christ, it’s cold in here.”

Gerard was sitting on top of one of the typically vacated tables in the front row, legs crisscrossed and smile bright, as the students filed into the room for their final class period. His hair was pulled back into a clumsy ponytail, red strands falling and framing his face oddly well for the mess that it was. He looked calm and oddly pretty.

Frank tried to avoid looking at him.

When the bell rang, Gerard addressed the class with a question rather than a greeting. “If you could be something else – anything else – what would you be?” he asked. “Please raise your hands.”

The blonde girl that Frank hated was the first to raise her hand. “I’d be a goddess,” she said when she was called on. “Like, a love goddess.”

Frank gagged internally and decided that he hadn’t hated the blonde girl enough before. He was upgrading his hatred to loathing. He loathed Britney and her ridiculously high-pitched, bitch voice.

“Way to aim high, Britney,” Gerard said with a small, awkward laugh. “Anyone else?”

A kid in the front row of tables raised his hand. He had light brown, shoulder length hair and wore the same black snapback every day. Frank was pretty sure he was the kid Bob had referred to as “Vic” at lunch.

“If I could be anything, I’d be a king,” Vic said. “I’m tired of having to beg for the shit that I want. It’d be nice to be the boss, even if it was only for the day.”

“What would you be the king of?” Gerard prompted.

“Fuck, I dunno. Everything?”

Gerard nodded, and Frank was pretty sure he heard the elder Way brother muttering something about “a class full of power-hungry kids”.

A girl with black hair and skin pale enough that she could conceivably be a vampire raised her hand next. Frank vaguely recognized her from the play practices she’d attended but couldn’t remember her name for the life of him. She tended to keep to herself, but her voice was powerful.

“I’d be a mermaid,” she announced when Gerard called on her. “Then, I could have nice hair, no responsibilities, and I could lure men to their deaths when they piss me off.”

Gerard laughed nervously. “Anyone else?”

Frank raised his hand.

“Yes, Frank. What would you be?”

“I’d be happy.”

Frank wasn’t sure why he said that. He’d been about to say something along the lines of wanting to be a sasquatch so that no one could find him and force social obligations upon him, but somehow that had fallen out instead. What the fuck was wrong with him?

The class laughed, though, and there was a general hum classic Gen Z depression. Frank thought he heard someone mumble something along the lines of, “Okay, Edgelord.”

“Anyone else?” Gerard asked.

“Nah,” Bob laughed. “I think Frank summed it up pretty nicely.”

Gerard smiled sadly and shook his head at the class. “Alright, then. Your next assignment is a self-portrait that takes place in an alternate universe. That means you can put yourself in any world excepting this world and any worlds depicting content that could get me fired. For example,” Gerard continued. “I’d probably depict myself as Jareth, the Goblin King.” Then, with a very pointed look at Vic, “You know. From _Labyrinth_.”

The blonde girl that Frank loathed laughed dutifully. Holy fuck, was she annoying.

“Any questions?” Gerard asked the class.

There were no questions.

“Alright. Get to work, then.”

Frank agreed to walk home with Brendon and Ryan for three reasons. The first was that, though he wasn’t sure when it had happened, Brendon had transitioned from the annoying kid who followed Frank around to a sort-of-friend – which meant that they could talk without Frank wanting to rip his hair out. It was hardly weird at all to spend the extra thirty minutes talking to him, especially since Frank didn’t have to say much when Brendon got really into a topic.

The second reason was that, if Frank walked behind them, they sheltered him from the brunt of the wind. He was already cold as fuck and he’d be even colder if he didn’t have the two sophomores as human shields.

The third was that Frank was too much of a little bitch to ask Gerard for a ride home. He had been so worried that Gerard would start to consider driving Frank home to be a part of his routine that even the prospect of seat-warmers couldn’t make him ask. He was regretted that decision as soon as the wind started bitch slapping him from the side.

“I heard there’s a party at Britney S.’s this Friday,” Brendon said, breaking into Frank’s thoughts. “Are you going?”

“Probably not,” Frank said. Party’s weren’t really his thing. “Besides, I fucking hate that bitch.”

“I mean, does it matter? A party’s a party,” Brendon said. “You probably wouldn’t even see her.”

“Have you ever been to a party before?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow at his sophomore friend-thing.

“Well… no. But I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

Frank breathed out a short laugh. “High school parties aren’t fun. It’s just a bunch of assholes getting drunk and listening to shitty music.”

“I mean… it sounded fun to me.” Brendon picked at his jeans as he walked, obviously trying not to show the disappointment on his face. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want.”

“You and Ryan can still go without me. Just because I don’t want to go doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun.”

Brendon nodded but said nothing. Ryan acknowledged Frank with an expression that said something like, “Look what you did.”

Frank didn’t have enough of a conscience to give in to the pouting, though he did feel kind of bad. He’d experienced enough high school parties to last a life time. He decided to offer an alternative.

“We could just…hang out. Ya know, instead,” Frank offered, feeling awkward. “We could just chill at my house. Maybe watch a movie or something. I dunno.”

Brendon was beaming like he’d just been given a great gift. “Really?” he asked. “You’re serious?”

“Sure,” Frank replied, sighing internally. He’d just agreed to a social obligation – the bane of his existence. Why? Because Brendon pouted and, evidently, Frank was a fucking pushover.

“This is gonna be so much fun!” Brendon practically squeaked. “You’re a good friend, Frank.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Frank didn’t feel much like a good friend – he felt more like an idiot. Still, Brendon put up with his general bitchiness every day without complaint. The least he could do was spend an evening with his peers. It would probably be super uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t kill him. Or, if he was super lucky, it would kill him, and he’d be put out of his misery. Either way, it was a win-win.

~

Frank had learned his lesson on walking home, the lesson being that it was cold as fuck and he should avoid it at all costs. If the worst he had to deal with was Gerard and his expectations, it was worth it to not be assaulted by the wind. Plus, with the sun starting to set sooner, it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to start walking home in the dark. Being a little bitch about it was no longer an option.

Still, Frank wasn’t keen on the idea of small talk. It was unavoidable, however, so it was best to simply get it out of the way.

“Why did you decide to be a teacher?” Frank asked him.

“Well, it definitely wasn’t because of the money. They don’t pay me for shit,” Gerard replied, laughing a little as he spoke. “I guess I just really wanted to connect and do something important. It means a lot to me to be able to influence the art of the next generation.” Gerard smiled sweetly as he said this, and is hazel eyes sparkled in the setting sunlight. He was completely pure and genuine.

Frank looked away before he started staring.

“What about you, Frankie? What do you wanna do with your life?”

“I don’t really know,” Frank said honestly. “Maybe I’ll do something with music.”

“You’ll have to play something for me sometime. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you perform.” Then, after thinking a moment, “Well, I take that back. There was that one time when you were, like, seven and we put on that show for our parents in your backyard.”

A smile crossed Frank’s face unbidden as the memory resurfaced. “I remember that,” he said. “We made curtains out of bedsheets and rigged them with fishing wire.”

Gerard giggled – the fucker fucking giggled – a sweet and innocent sound “We spent more time working on those fucking curtains than we did rehearsing our show.”

“That was back before you were too cool to hang out with us,” Frank teased. Well, his tone was teasing. His words were true, and Gerard’s smile faltered for a fraction of a moment.

“I wish I’d known then that I would never be too cool for you, Frankie. Would’ve saved a lot of time.” Then, Gerard looked over at him and smiled sincerely, his lips curving in a way that made it a little harder for Frank to breathe.

It felt like Frank had just been sucker punched directly in the chest. It was too much. Gerard was really, _really_ pretty and his eyes were so fucking soft, and he was acting like he genuinely cared about Frank. It was unfair how well he had rendered the people defenseless, especially since Frank only had those defenses because of Gerard.

As quickly as Gerard had looked over in the first place, he looked back to the road, continuing to drive as though he hadn’t just personally reached into Frank’s chest and squeezed his heart a little. Like, what the fuck? Who does that?

Frank stared out the window, diligently trying to slow his breathing.

When the Camry pulled up to the curb and stopped, Frank was already unbuckled, bag in hand as he prepared to make a run for it. He was starting to feel… weird. Maybe he was sick or something.

He might have made it out the door if not for Gerard reaching over and grabbing the hand that had been reaching for the door handle, effectively stopping all of Frank’s motion, plus all through processes.

“I wanna ask you something before you bolt out of here,” Gerard explained, allowing the hand in his grasp to drop into Frank’s lap.

Frank’s voice was barely audible as he spoke. “Okay.” He felt out of his right mind, his brain too preoccupied with the traitor tingling sensation that had taken over his hand where Gerard had touched him to be able to communicate normally.

“Are you… you know, okay?” Gerard asked. “Like, emotionally okay?”

The lie was automatic: “I’m fine.”

Gerard let out a short, awkward laugh, and Frank stared determinedly at the dash board, refusing to look at any smiles that might ruin him. After all, his hand was still tingling. Gerard was a dangerous man.

“Would you tell me if you weren’t okay?”

Gerard’s tone had taken on the delicacy it had always reserved for times when Frank had needed comforting. Frank now hated that tone, and he cringed at the memory of Gerard’s hands holding on to his face, reassuring and sturdy. He hated that he had once found comfort in those hands.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Frank said honestly, voice blank.

There was very obvious disappointment in Gerard’s voice as he simply replied, “Oh.”

What was he expecting? “_Oh, Gee, you’re the only person I would talk to!_” or, “_You’re my bestest friend in the whole world! Of course I’d talk to you if I was upset!_” That wasn’t going to happen, and if Gerard had thought anything of the sort, he was a fool.

“You know that I care about you, right?” Gerard asked. He reached out and held onto Frank’s chin, forcing Frank to look at him. “I care about you.”

Frank pulled his face from Gerard’s grip, uncomfortable with the gentleness of those fingers. They reminded him too much of different times. Those times were long passed.

“Okay, cool,” he said. “I need to go, okay? Homework.” He was lying. The situation was pushing the limits of his comfort. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Gerard let him go, and Frank didn’t look back as he made his way into his house.

~

Gerard seemed upset in eighth hour. He smiled, but it never reached his eyes, which was particularly abnormal for a man who could probably find something to smile about at a funeral.

After Gerard finished muttering an impressive string of expletives regarding the paint he’d spilled on himself, Bob turned to Frank with raised eyebrows and a mouth partially open in shock. “Jesus fuck,” he whispered to Frank. “Who died? I’ve never seen Mr. Way this upset.”

Frank shrugged and struggled to stifle the guilt that had begun building up in his chest. He had no reason to be guilty, after all. Gerard’s bad mood was Gerard’s problem, not his.

When Frank invited Brendon and Ryan to hang out, he hadn’t intended it to be a sleepover. That wasn’t communicated very well, apparently, because Brendon and Ryan both had overnight bags when they met up with Frank after practice. At that point, it was too late. Frank didn’t want to make them feel stupid. He could deal with one night. Right?

Well.

Linda had been shocked, not only when Frank brought home two “friends”, but when he announced that they were staying over as well. She tried to hide it, of course, but she hovered more than usual, offering to run to the store for snacks and soda. This was odd, as junk food had been expressly forbidden since she’d begun her most recent diet.

They set up camp in the basement. There was a TV and a couch down there, as well as a queen bed left over from the divorce. Linda hadn’t been down to the basement since then, so Frank was relatively certain that she wouldn’t bother them.

Then, the silence set in.

“So…what d’you wanna do?” Brendon asked, slumping onto the bed.

Frank was at a loss. He hadn’t had a sleepover in years, and even then, it was always with Mikey, who didn’t require entertaining. “Uh. I dunno. Watch a movie?”

“Okay. What movie?”

“I have some B-rated horror movies upstairs.”

“I don’t like scary movies,” Ryan declared, settling down onto the bed next to Brendon. This was the first thing he’d said to Frank all night, and he was looking at the floor when he said it.

Frank scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Alright. What kind of movies do you like?”

Ryan just shrugged.

“How about _Mama Mia_?” Brendon suggested.

Ryan thought about it for a moment before nodding slowly. “That’s fine,” he agreed.

Frank pulled up Netflix.

The movie ended around nine o’clock, at which time the group disbanded to retrieve snacks and take potty breaks. Frank took the opportunity to go to his room for a small breather under the guise of retrieving some extra pillows.

The picture frame that Gerard gave him for his birthday was on his nightstand, staring back at him accusingly. He vaguely wondered where he was, what he was doing, if he was having fun. In that moment, Frank almost wished he was with Gerard rather than enduring this awkward, impromptu slumber party.

It was as though Frank wasn’t capable of making an effort. He absolutely was. It was just that it was a Friday night, and it had been a long week, and all he wanted to do was unwind. That was a little impossible with Brendon constantly talking through the movies and Ryan huddling into himself like he was afraid someone was going to hit him if he so much as moved wrong. It was turning out to be much more stressful than Frank had bargained for, and he had half a mind to feign sickness and send them both home.

“Whatcha thinking about?”

Frank’s head snapped in the direction of the soft voice that had questioned him. It was Ryan, standing in his doorway tentatively, like he was afraid to take up space.

“Oh, uh.” Frank scratched the back of his neck. “Nothing really. Just got lost in my head for a second.”

Ryan nodded, then looked to his feet, which kicked timidly at the hardwood floor. He opened his mouth once to reply but closed it again quickly.

“You okay?” Frank asked. “You haven’t said much all night.”

“Yeah, I’m…” Ryan paused. His forehead scrunched as he thought about something for several moments, before he finally whispered, “Brendon likes you.”

Frank huffed a laugh. “Okay? I mean. We’re sort of friends. I figured.”

Ryan shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

What did he mean? That Brendon had a crush on him? The weight of the thought settled in his chest. That just wouldn’t do. That was too much expectation. Frank didn’t want to – and emotionally couldn’t – carry it.

He sighed like the air was being let out of him. “Yikes.”

“’Yikes’?” Ryan stood upright and balled his hands into fists at his sides. “What do you mean, ‘yikes’?”

“I mean that it’s not ideal,” Frank meandered. “I don’t really want anyone to have a crush on me.”

“Yeah, but…but…” Ryan rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “You’re not even gonna give him a chance?’

Frank could feel the blood rushing to his face. _What makes you think I’m gay_, he wanted to snap. _His feelings are not my responsibility_. What he said was, “I’d rather not be in a relationship right now.”

“Is there someone else?” Ryan demanded.

Frank’s brain tried to form an image of someone for a fraction of a second before it was trampled and shoved away. “No,” Frank insisted. “I just don’t think I should be dating before I leave for college, let alone dating someone so much younger than me.”

Ryan eyed Frank for a few moments before sighing. “He’s a good guy. I hate seeing him get his hopes up.”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said, because it was all he could say.

Ryan shrugged. “At least you’re not a homophobe.”

A laugh bubbled out of Frank’s throat and escaped past his lips. “Oh, no. Definitely not a homophobe.”

The second movie they watched was _Easy A_, and Brendon apparently had a lot of opinions about that movie as well. This time, however, Ryan contributed.

“Okay, but hear me out. Stanley Tucci is a _snack_,” Brendon remarked once.

“Maybe you’re just a whore,” Ryan replied.

It wasn’t so bad.

After Frank had turned out the basement lights and settled onto the couch to go to sleep, he unlocked his phone and stared at Gerard’s contact for a good ten minutes.

**I don’t hate you.** he typed, then deleted immediately.

**I’m sorry for being a dick.** He deleted that, too.

**I miss you.** Why was he so fucking stupid?

He sighed, closed his messaging app, and turned off his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIVE ME FEEDBACK.


	4. Act One, Scene Four

When Brendon and Ryan left around one in the afternoon, Frank didn’t know what to do with himself. There was a cold, empty cavern in his chest, and his brain was idle. He was surprised to find that he was lonely.

To distract himself, Frank started cleaning. He changed the sheets on the bed in the basement, he folded the blankets he’d used when he slept on the couch, and then he vacuumed the carpet. Once all of that was done, Frank was still fidgety, so he went upstairs and tried to practice his guitar. The sound reverberated in his head and his fingers wouldn’t cooperate, so he eventually resigned himself to watching a movie on his laptop and scrolling Tumblr on his phone.

It didn’t quite fill the emptiness. He remembered, in those moments, why he didn’t have many friends to begin with. You can’t miss what you don’t have.

~

During Frank’s eighth hour class period on Monday, Gerard acted odd.

When Frank entered the room just before the bell, Gerard was seated behind his desk, carefully focused on writing something. He stayed seated for the entire hour, not once bothering to walk around and check on the progress of the projects like he usually did. He only smiled once, and that was when Britney told him that he looked nice. He didn’t even seem to be aware that Frank was in the same room.

There had been a half-formed expectation in Frank’s stomach that maybe Gerard would say something to him when the bell rang, or even just wave to acknowledge his existence. Instead, Gerard remained focused on whatever he was working on, not looking up as his students filed out of the room for the day.

Frank chose not to push him to talk.

Practice dragged on more slowly than usual. It was supposed to be their last read-through before they started stage rehearsals, but the whole ordeal of sitting in a circle of desks and reciting lines was entirely monotonous at that point. Frank had his lines memorized, anyway. They’d been doing this every day after school for close to two months, after all.

Brendon bolted as soon as practice ended, offering Frank an apologetic smile as he yelled his excuse – something about chores he had to do – and ran out the door. Ryan followed him, offering his own remorseful shrug before abandoning Frank to walk home alone.

He tried not to be disappointed. He was barely friends with them. They didn’t _have_ to walk home with him. Since when was he so obsessed with the validation of underclassmen? He reminded himself once more of the perils of companionship as he shoved the emotion down to the back recesses of his head and imagined that he was releasing it through the trash shoot in his brain. He made his way out the front doors of the school by himself.

The first thing Frank noticed – besides the wind slapping him upside the head as he stepped out into the cold – was the black Camry pulled up to the curb in front of the school. The second thing he noticed was Gerard in the front seat, sporting a dopey smile and waving. Frank climbed into the passenger seat and tried not to wonder how long he’d been waiting.

“Hey, Kid,” Gerard murmured, his voice low against the purring of the engine.

“Hey.” Frank buckled in. “How was your day?”

Frank expected Gerard to elaborate on what he’d been so preoccupied with, but instead he sighed deeply, put his car in gear, pulled out of the school parking lot, and said, “It was there. You?”

Frank forced down his curiosity and put that out the trash shoot in his brain, as well. “Pretty much the same.”

“Did you do anything fun today?”

He thought for a moment, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes with his fingertips as he did so. “Not really. Just, ya know, going through the motions. I went to school, I went to practice, and now I’m going home. Nothing too interesting.”

“Yeah, well. You ever miss being, like, five? No school, no responsibilities. I’ve got so much shit going on. I pray for dull days.”

“What all do you have going on?” Frank tried not to sound interested. He tried not to _be_ interested.

“Grading papers, grading projects, paying bills, dying inside. You know how it is. At least, I’m sure you get it in theory.”

The corner of Frank’s mouth upturned involuntarily. “Of course. In theory.”

Gerard looked at him from the corner of his eye and grinned conspiratorially.

~

Stage practices began tediously. It seemed that the objective, first and foremost, was to figure out how wide to open the curtains and where the furniture should go – when they got furniture, that is. They ran through scenes slowly, sometimes interrupted mid-line so that Mrs. Carlisle could ask the cast to move over _just a skootch_ to the left or a _teeny bit_ to the right. Then, someone from the stage crew would come forward with white tape and a sharpie and make a note. Mrs. Carlisle called this “blocking”.

It was taking forever to run through the scenes.

Frank spent most of his time during practice being grumpy and tired, but he was not allowed to have peace in this. Between scenes, Brendon and Ryan took turns chatting at him about various nothings. Sat partially obscured by a set of prop stairs, Frank was intermittently bombarded with memes and jokes about the memes, some of which he’d already seen on Tumblr. He wanted to be irritated, but then Brendon would flail his arms as he rambled on excitedly and almost hit Ryan in the face, and then Frank was smiling in spite of himself – in spite of how much he tried to convince himself that he was unamused.

~

Frank didn’t know what to do for his self-portrait, besides that it obviously had to have an image of himself somewhere. Sure, he could do something basic, like implanting himself in a fantasy world with dragons or depicting himself floating around amongst the stars, but that was almost standard for creativity. Everyone in class was going to do something like that. He wanted to be different.

He thought deeply, sighed, and rubbed at the back of his neck. The last time he’d seen himself in a piece of media, it had been in one of his mother’s book club books, _Anatomy of a Fall_. It was about this teenager that discovered a ghost in the forest and ended up falling in love with him while trying to solve the mystery surrounding his death. The ghost was a totally cool punk with a sympathetic story and Frank had related to him a lot. He could easily draw a ghostly version of himself. The only problem with that was how fucking morbid it was.

But, see, Frank wanted to be honest.

Secretly – so secretly that he hardly liked to acknowledge it – he was starting to feel like he was coming apart at the corners, at the edges, at the seams, essentially held together by coffee and sarcasm. The only thing about him that people really knew was that he was short and bitter and didn’t interact much. He held the few people who might like to get to know him at arm’s length. He didn’t want people to see him. He wanted to be alone. He just didn’t want to be lonely.

He began a rough outline of his likeness based on a picture that Mikey had taken of him when he was home for Frank’s birthday. In the photo, he was lying on his side on his bed, his legs pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them as he smiled, soft and endeared by a friend out of frame. He decided, in an effort to be far more candid than he was truly comfortable with, to also draw simple outlines of some tombstones.

Mrs. Carlisle announced it beforehand, luckily enough. She unwittingly gave Frank a few moments to prepare.

“I’ve asked Mr. Way to help with the sets,” she announced. The majority of the Drama Club was gathered in her classroom, waiting for the last member – vampire girl from art class – to arrive so that they could all walk down to the theater as a group. “He’s doing me a big favor by helping out with this, so I expect you all to be extra respectful and stay out of his way unless he specifically asks for help. I don’t want to inconvenience him any more than I already am. Does everyone understand?”

There was a general rumble of agreement and, when a quietly apologetic vampire girl arrived a few minutes later, the group headed for the theater.

Frank was nervous. He had no real reason to be nervous, of course. It was just Gerard, after all. He saw Gerard almost every day, no problem. Gerard had even been driving him home a lot recently. Besides, they didn’t even have to talk. There was no reason to be worried.

He was still worried. He would just have to deal with it.

Gerard was on the stage when the group arrived, looking like an actual adult with his black teacher pants and turquois sweater with the sleeves rolled up to the mid-forearm. If not for the way his smile was so sheepish, like he wasn’t sure what he was doing at any time ever, and the way his body stood as though even the simple act of being upright was a question, he might have actually seemed like a real, functional person.

“Mr. Way,” Mrs. Carlisle greeted, smiling at him in a way that was both relieved and apologetic. “I’m glad you could make it.”

Gerard smiled a little wider. “Any time.”

“I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this,” Gerard groaned as he pulled the Camry onto the main road. “Why am I like this?”

“I dunno. Why _are_ you like this?”

Gerard glared at Frank out of the corner of his eye. “Stop being mean to me. I’m stressed.”

“You didn’t have to help her, ya know,” Frank said, huffing out a laugh. “You brought this on yourself.”

“But she _asked_ me. And she seemed so worried about the production.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

Gerard sighed, his lips falling into a pout. “Tell me I’m a good person and that this experience will be rewarding.”

“You’re a good person and this experience will be rewarding,” Frank replied in monotone, his face deadpan.

“No, say it like you mean it.”

“Stop complaining.”

“Frankie,” Gerard whined. “Humor me.”

“No. You’re being annoying.”

Gerard stuck out his lower lip in an extreme puppy-eyes pout.

“Gerard, you’re a grown man.” Frank tried to sound like he was giving a reprimand, but he couldn’t keep the encroaching smile off his face. “Stop pouting like a baby.”

“Maybe if I were a baby, I wouldn’t have to do things.” Frank rolled his eyes, but that just seemed to encourage him. “Would you still hang out with me if I was a baby?”

“That’s it,” Frank declared, reaching for the door handle. “I’m out.”

Gerard locked the door with the parental lock and grinned at Frank like an idiot. Frank let himself smile back, but not too wide.

~

The version of Gerard that sat stiffly in the pew of red theater seats beside Mrs. Carlisle, serious as they compared notes on how to build a small town within the confines of a stage, was very different from the Gerard that Frank was familiar with. His smiles were stiff, his laughter came out in short, awkward bursts. It was somewhat off-putting, particularly since Frank had only ever been used to the kind of smiles that made the corners of Gerard’s eyes crinkle a little, his upturned nose scrunch up, weirdly small teeth bared to the world as he laughed his odd little laugh. This probably had to do with the difference in setting and the fact that it was nearly impossible for _anyone_ to be comfortable in a room full of theater-nerd high-schoolers.

However much their relationship had progressed, Frank kind of hated that Gerard was there. He hated that he even noticed Gerard was there. He actively fought against the urge to watch Gerard and constantly be aware of his location, but the effort was mostly in vain, because Frank still noticed things – how Gerard’s tongue still had a habit of peaking out between his lips when he was concentrating, how his natural hair color was growing in, slowly overtaking the red, the way he tended to talk with one side of his mouth. He got lost in the rhythmic tapping of Gerard’s pen against his notebook as he struggled to figure out how to make his ideas work. It reminded him of Friday nights spent reading, Gerard tapping softly on his sketchbook, and the feeling that things were exactly as they should be.

Frank couldn’t focus. He forgot his lines, he forgot where to stand. He was so intent on trying not to notice Gerard that he couldn’t concentrate. He felt like a fool, felt like he could easily deck Gerard across the face – and they were supposed to start choreography on Monday, just to add to the whole fucking mess.

He sat by Brendon or Ryan backstage between scenes, desperate to focus on anything else.

When it happened, they were going over the fourth scene in Act One. On the stage were the long-haired-and-fedora guy from auditions, who was apparently named Patrick, Amy, the vampire chick from Frank’s art class, and Ryan. Ryan’s character, Finn, had been discovered as a homosexual by his father and was sent to a conversion camp run by the church, operated by the Reverend McCarty and his wife, Maria, portrayed by Patrick and Amy respectively. Throughout the course of the scene, they would essentially pressure Finn into denouncing his homosexuality through the fear of God, resulting in Finn breaking things off with Jack in the next scene. It was a mostly music-oriented scene, but Mrs. Carlisle was saving the choreography, so she focused instead on blocking the parts with dialogue.

Ryan was in the middle of cowering when Brendon turned to Frank and said, “So, I like you.”

Frank’s face burned. This was the last thing he needed.

“You know, _like_ like,” Brendon clarified unnecessarily. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out with me sometime. Maybe. If you wanted.”

Frank stared at the ground. He had been hoping that Ryan would discourage Brendon from asking him out, but evidently that was not the case. Brendon would have to crash and burn by himself.

Fuck.

“That’s really sweet, man,” Frank whispered. He couldn’t make his voice any louder. “But I think I’d like to stay friends.”

“Oh.” He could hear the poorly suppressed hurt in Brendon’s voice. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry. I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s cool,” Frank replied, fidgeting with his pant leg. “Still friends?”

“Yeah. Yeah, still friends.”

Frank let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I don’t have that many friends.”

“That’s probably because you’re unapproachable.”

Frank let out a small laugh and steeled himself to look Brendon in the eye. He was squirming a little, and his face was red, but he wasn’t crying or anything, so Frank counted that as a success.

~

Friday arrived eventually, despite the rising concern that it simply wouldn’t show at all. It had evidently been hesitant to make an appearance, dragging its feet while the rest of the weekdays elongated themselves to compensate for Friday’s unwillingness to approach. Still, against all odds and beliefs otherwise, Friday did, in fact, arrive, much to Frank’s great relief. Finally, he would get a chance to unwind, maybe catch up on the sleep that he’d been missing, maybe smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, maybe rewatch the original _Jurassic Park_. Whatever he decided to do, he was going to relax, damn it.

At least, that’s what Frank believed until lunchtime when he received a text from Gerard. **Am I still giving you a ride home?** it said. It was followed by another message, reading, **I can supply coffee and/or food.**

It was quite a shock to Frank when he realized that he had assumed Gerard would give him a ride home. Since when had he become so dependent on _Gerard_ of all people.

His phone buzzed again.

**I just didn’t want to assume. You know. If you had plans,** Gerard said. **I just like getting to see you.**

Why did Gerard want to see him? He was a difficult, bitchy piece of shit, and he wasn’t even entirely sure that he didn’t hate Gerard most of the time. He almost felt a little guilty.

“Who’re you talking to?” Bob asked, ripping Frank from his thoughts and leaning over the table, nosily trying to look at Frank’s test messages. “Whatever they just said, it looks like it’s giving you an existential crisis.”

“No one,” Frank snapped, shoving his phone into his pocket. Then, he softened his voice. “Sorry. It’s private.”

Bob eyed him with suspicion but put his hands up in something like surrender. “Okay, dude.”

Bob went back to eating his food, and Frank let his hair fall into his face as though it would hide him from the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the table. It was getting long. He needed a haircut soon.

After a few moments’ hesitation, Frank texted Gerard back.

**Not sure,** he replied, fully knowing that he was going to go. **I’ll let you know after studio.**

Gerard stopped his Camry in front of a café that Frank had never been to before, which wasn’t saying much, considering how rarely he left his house if he could help it. It was a simple red brick building, white trim around the windows and the door, with simple font on the sign that indicated the name of the establishment.

“I stop here sometimes on my way to school,” Gerard explained, nervously tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

Frank thought for a moment. The coffee shop was in the complete opposite direction of Frank’s house when leaving the school. It was probably thirty minutes away from where he lived – which mean that all the times that Gerard had dropped Frank off had also been probably thirty or minutes out of the way of his apartment.

“It’s not much, but it’s nice,” Gerard went on, mistaking Frank’s contemplative silence for apprehension. “The coffee’s really good.”

Frank pushed down the rising guilt and nodded. Then, he unbuckled, opened his car door, and said, “Coffee sounds good.”

The inside of the coffee shop was an odd place, cohesive in a way that wouldn’t have worked if even one small detail was altered. Frank loved it immediately.

Three of the walls were a hazy grayish-blue, like the sky during an early morning thunderstorm. The farthest wall was a warm red, the color of settling under a blanket with a mug of hot tea. The floors, the bar in the back left corner, and the raised platform in the back right corner were made of a rich, dark wood, and all of the tables were painted a smooth black. No two chairs in the entire establishment were alike, which should have been chaotic and tacky, but was actually somehow quite the opposite. The walls were covered in posters, some of the bands featured on them incredibly obscure – like Talk To Me On Tuesday and The Sugar Babies – and others more well-known – like The Smiths and Radiohead. In the back right corner, a karaoke machine was set up on the platform.

“Holy fuck,” Frank said, not sure how else to phrase the feeling he got just by walking in the door. It felt almost like making eye contact with Gerard. A forced calm washed over him immediately, and there was nothing he could do but drink it in.

Frank poked Gerard’s shoulder lightly to make sure he had his attention, and very sternly declared, “I am _not_ doing karaoke.”

Gerard smiled. “Noted.” Then, gesturing to the bar serving the coffee, “Shall we?”

Conversation with Frank tended to be laborious on the best of days, but the best of days seemed to be long gone. He was sat across from his first love, his childhood friend, and his greatest antagonist in the most chaotic and surreal coffee shop he’d ever set foot in. He didn’t know what to say, and the search for words felt eerily similar to the Greek myth where the guy was cursed to push a rock up a hill for all eternity.

Gerard was very obviously nervous. He took a drink of coffee from a lightly chipped, plum purple mug, then sat it down and began tapping on the porcelain. Then, he picked it up again and looked into the contents as though maybe his painfully sugary coffee had the answers.

“The play seems to be coming along well,” he said conversationally, with a remarkable lack of confidence. “When do you guys start working on the dancing stuff?”

“Next week.” Frank swirled the coffee around in his own candy blue mug. “She – Mrs. Carlisle – made a schedule for which days we’re supposed to come in and work on choreography, and then we’re supposed to try and put it together on Fridays.”

“So, do you go in every day or just the days you have to work on your choreography?”

“We just come in whatever day we’re supposed to work on our parts. I think she wanted me to do some of the ensemble dancing too, though, because we’re low on dancers, so I’ll probably still be there every day.”

“Is she holding practice over break?”

“Yeah. We’re running a little behind schedule, so we have to.”

“I didn’t realize you guys were behind.”

“That’s good, I guess.” Frank took a sip of his steaming coffee and burnt his tongue. “I like to think we look pretty put together.”

Silence descended once more.

“So, there was something I wanted to talk to you about,” Gerard began, staring deliberately at the table. “It’s not, like, anything life or death or whatever. It’s just something… Well, it’s something about me. I’m not making excuses. I just thought you should know.”

Frank stared quietly, instantly nervous. He waited patiently for Gerard to continue speaking.

“I’m an alcoholic,” Gerard whispered, eyes still on the table.

Well, fuck. Frank wasn’t expecting that. “What do you mean?” he asked, even though there wasn’t much to misinterpret.

“I’m… I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink in over a year, but…but things were pretty bad for a minute there. That’s part of the reason I fell out of touch.” Gerard scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’m not trying to make excuses. I just thought you deserved an actual explanation.”

Frank’s mind went blank trying to process this new information. Gerard was an alcoholic. _Gerard_ was an alcoholic. Gerard, the teacher, the menace, was an alcoholic.

“Do your parents know?”

“Uh, no.” Gerard turned the ring on his thumb absently. He looked so small, shoulders hunched in on himself and eyes cast down. A frown tugged at the corners of his eyes, the discomfort biting into the softness there. “Nobody knows except my college roommate, Ray, because he helped me get clean. And, well. Now you know.”

“You didn’t tell Mikey?”

Gerard’s eyelids clenched shut. He took in a sharp breath, as though he needed the extra air to take up room and force the words out. “I didn’t know what to say. I don’t want him to know that…that… I don’t want him to think less of me.”

“But you told me… Why tell me?”

Gerard almost smiled – almost – and pulled the ring from his thumb so that he could turn it over in his palm. “You were mad at me, and you had right to be. So, now, you don’t trust me, and you barely like me.” Frank wanted to interject and deny that, possibly with a lie, but Gerard continued. “I want you to trust me again. The only way I can prove that I’m trustworthy is by being honest.”

Frank opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. He had no words.

If Frank had been retaining any skepticism up to that point, it disappeared as soon as he locked eyes with Gerard and saw the sadness there – the complete and utter mortification – before he looked away. If there were two things that Frank knew in life, they were sadness, and that eyes were the trickiest part of the face to coach into a lie, let alone a lie as convincing as sadness. Gerard was no actor, anyway. He was being honest.

“Look, please don’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone else to know,” Gerard pleaded, looking up suddenly.

“I mean, I won’t, but I do think you should talk to someone about this. Maybe your mom? People care about you.”

Gerard laughed bitterly at that. “Please. I’ve alienated my entire family.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t still care about you, Dipshit. They’re your family.”

There was a subtle shake to Gerard’s hands as he picked up his coffee mug, took a drink, and sat it back down again. “Do you no what my mom said to me when she found out I’d moved back?”

Frank shook his head no.

“She wasn’t excited that I was close to home or even happy that I’d stopped by to visit. She was pissed. She went on this whole tirade about how it wouldn’t kill me to call once in a while, and Dad just sat in the corner, looking at me like I was a stranger.” Gerard rubbed his eye with his knuckle, and Frank noticed the dark circles that had made a home there. “And I don’t think I need to remind you what you said to me when I moved back.”

“She wouldn’t want you to call if she didn’t miss you.”

“She has an interesting way of showing it.”

Frank had to suppress an eyeroll. “At least your mom interacts with you. I have to basically make an appointment to see my dad and my mom is never home because she’s working or at book club or doing yoga or whatever. Have a little perspective, man.” Frank reminded himself that this was how he liked it, despite the empty pit in his chest as of late. “Besides, if your parents knew, maybe they’d stop being assholes about the time you were away and start focusing on how they can help you now.”

Gerard fidgeted in his seat, his fingers going over the buttons on his vest as he bit his lips raw. Frank almost felt like he was seeing Gerard for the first time – and maybe he was.

After several moments of silence, Frank sighed and asked, “Why is it so important that I trust you?”

He thought for a minute. “I guess… I guess its because, ya know, growing up… you always kinda looked at me like I could do no wrong. You- You never got mad at me when I was pissy and you were always excited when I spent time with you and Mikey.” Gerard looked up at Frank through his eyelashes, deflated. “When I realized how upset you were, it kind of put into perspective how badly I’d fucked up.”

Frank felt a pang of embarrassment slice through his chest. So, Gerard _had_ noticed his puppy love. Ouch.

“If you want me to trust you, you have to trust me. It goes both ways,” Frank said, surprised to find his voice calm and tender. “You need to talk to your parents, or at the very least, Mikey. You can’t keep carrying this by yourself.”

Gerard hesitated; his lips parted for words that wouldn’t come immediately. It took him several seconds before he finally said, “I’ll think about it. Okay? I’ll think about it.” He inhaled shakily. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you about this for a few days now, and I still almost bailed. I even wrote down what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make it sound right. I don’t know if I can say it to Mikey, but I’ll think about it. I’ll try.”

Frank nodded, satisfied. He could live with a “maybe”.

“And, for the record,” Frank began, voicing an afterthought. “I was only mad at you because I missed you and it seemed like you didn’t miss me. Your mom probably feels similarly.”

Gerard’s lips upturned into a small, pitiable smile, and he looked at Frank with eyes that were once again soft and shiny. “When did you get so smart?”

Frank shrugged, but smiled back, and took a sip of his coffee.

~

At 2:48 am on Saturday night – rather, Sunday morning – Frank was startled awake by a loud buzzing directly in front of his face. Upon closer inspection, the source of the offensive noise was his cell phone, which his own dumb, sleepy ass had left on the pillow. Now, normally, he’d have simply shut the stupid thing off and gone back to sleep. However, it was Mikey calling, and he was essentially contractually obligated by a lifetime of friendship to answer, no matter how grumpy he was about that fact.

Begrudgingly, he answered the phone.

“You dying?” Frank demanded by way of greating, his voice cracked and strained by hours of disuse. “You’d better be dying.”

It took Mikey a moment to respond, but when he did, it was in his typical deadpan. “Not that I know of,” he said. “You?”

“What d’you want? It’s the asscrack of night.”

“I need a favor.” Perhaps Mikey could sense that Frank was about a half second away from telling him to fuck off and call back in the morning, because he then added, “And you can’t say no. You still owe me from last April.”

Frank made a grumbling noise at the back of his throat at the mention of The Incident. He was drunk. He wished Mikey would just let the fucking thing go.

“Fine,” Frank agreed, his voice a grouchy mumble. “What d’you want?”

“I need you to go to the Thanksgiving thing at my parents’ house on Thursday and cover for me when I pretend to get sick.”

“I’m supposed to go to see my dad for Thanksgiving,” Frank reminded him. He’d been going to his dad’s for Thanksgiving ever since he’d officially decided to live with his mom full time when he was fifteen. It was one of the only times he could count on seeing his dad, even if he attempted to be unaffected by Frank Sr.’s absence most of the time. “I don’t know if I can get out of it.”

There was just the faintest hint of desperation in Mikey’s voice – a significant amount of desperation for Mikey – when he asked, “Could you please try?”

That was fucking weird. Frank couldn’t remember the last time Mikey had used the word “please”. He was suddenly overwhelmingly curious. “Why are you trying to get out of Thanksgiving?”

“It’s the only day that I could schedule a date.”

That was even weirder. “With who?”

“That’s not important,” Mikey hedged. “Will you talk to your dad or not?”

“If you want me to reschedule one of the only times I know for sure that I’m going to see my father – who’s usually too busy for me – just so that I can attend a family gathering for a family that I don’t belong to and _lie to them_ so that you can go on a date and abandon me there, you will tell me who you’re going on a date with.”

Frank had a very good point, and Mikey must have thought so as well, because he sighed, long and suffering. “Pete, okay? I’m going out with Pete,” he snapped, as though Frank was supposed to know who that was.

“Pete who?”

“Wentz. From the tattoo place. I was supposed to go out with him that Friday, but Gerard called me and said he had something important to talk to me about and that it had to be private, so I had to reschedule. And Mom and Dad always try to milk the most out of their time with me, so they only way I’ll have even a second alone is if I pretend to be sick and climb out my bedroom window.”

Frank blinked, slowly absorbing the information. “Wait, the guy who did my tattoo?” Sure, Frank remembered Mikey giving out his number, but he didn’t think anything would actually come of it. Mikey was kind of flaky, romance wise, so the most anyone could really expect of him was maybe some flirting and a few hook ups. Mikey didn’t _date_, and he especially didn’t date guys who look like they write bad poetry in between sticking people with needles.

“Yes, that Pete.” Mikey sighed. “Now will you please fucking agree to help me?”

It was too fucking late – early, whatever – for Frank to deal with that level of out of character bullshit from Mikey. “Yeah, sure,” he agreed, ready to go back to sleep and forget the whole thing. “I’ll call my dad in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

Frank acknowledged his thanks with a grunt and hung up, dropping his phone onto his nightstand as he did so. It was a weird fucking night.

Er, morning.

~

On Monday morning, Ryan looked like crap as he sat down next to Frank on the bus. His hair was curly and tangled, standing up in the back of his head, and he was sporting pajama pants and an old hoodie. The poor kid looked like he was struggling to stay awake as he made his way down the aisle and took the seat next to Frank on the bus.

Somehow, he still had the energy to talk to Frank while Frank was trying to listen to music.

“What are you doing over Thanksgiving break, Frank?” he asked casually, just before Frank could replace his earbud.

As it was a Monday morning, Frank was even less inclined to be polite to people interrupting his music than usual, but one look at the dark bruises under Ryan’s eyes had him hesitating to be bitchy.

“I’m, uh…” he began, forcing himself to swallow his rudeness. “I’m going to a thing at a family friend’s house.” Then, for some reason, his mouth added, “What about you?”

Ryan’s face fell a little, and he looked across the aisle to where Brendon was sitting, angled away from the rest of the world as he stared out the window, his headphones turned up to tune out the noise on the bus. “I usually do something with Brendon…” he said, and Frank could almost hear the unspoken, “but I don’t know if that’s going to happen this year,” attached to the end.

“Did something happen?” Frank’s mouth asked, unbidden.

Ryan stared quietly at the seat in front of them for a moment before saying, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Frank felt bad for Ryan. He knew exactly what it was like to have someone you love distance themselves. In fact, he thought it might have actually been worse for Ryan, because Ryan didn’t have a Mikey to fall back on. Ryan had no one but Brendon, and Brendon was kind of being a dick.

Maybe that’s why Frank’s mouth decided to say, “You can come to my Thanksgiving thing, if you want.”

Ryan looked about as surprised hearing the offer as Frank felt having extended it.

“What?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard Frank right.

That was Frank’s chance. He could say something else. He could recant. He could do anything that would mean he didn’t have to pile on more social obligation to an already difficult social obligation.

“I said you could come with me to my thing on Thanksgiving, if you want,” he repeated, because he was evidently a fucking pushover. “If you don’t have your own family thing to fall back on, or whatever, you can come over and go to my thing with me.”

Ryan looked like he was considering it, and then looked back to Brendon and sighed. “I guess it just depends on what happens with Brendon. We have a kind of tradition.”

Frank shrugged, half hoping that Brendon and Ryan would make up just so that Frank didn’t have to entertain Ryan on his own and half guilty for being such an asocial prick. “Fair enough,” he agreed. “Just keep me posted and let me know before Thursday.”

Ryan tried to smile at him, but his face wasn’t really into it. “Thanks, Frank. I’ll let you know.”

Gerard was a lot of things. He was artistic and passionate, flamboyant and sympathetic, generous and determined, etc. On that particular Monday in November, the only way Frank could think to describe Gerard was _incandescent_.

When Frank entered the classroom just before the bell, the first thing he noticed was that Gerard was practically glowing with joy. His smile was radiant, his cheeks rosy, his eyes shining as he partook in what looked to be some sort of sword fight with a very tall, sharp cheek-boned student, possibly named Andrew or Andy or something, but with rulers instead of swords. In fact, Gerard was losing, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He just laughed every time Andy or Andrew or whatever swatted at him.

Bob offered to explain what had happened leading up to that as Frank sat down beside him, but Frank said he didn’t want to know. It felt almost like the near-magic and innocence of the ruler duel would be tainted if he thought it had been brought on by anything other than pure, unadulterated revelry. Watching it was like straight serotonin to the brain.

It almost ached to watch Gerard smile like that because of someone else, but Frank knew that was ridiculous. He could only just barely convince himself that he didn’t dislike Gerard for the way he’d made Frank feel in his absence. Making Gerard smile like that was not his top priority, at the moment. Plus, Frank wasn’t sure he could even make _himself_ smile like that, let alone another person. There was no point in being jealous.

He was still jealous.

After three solid minutes of Gerard getting his ass handed to him in the ruler duel, he made Andrew or Andy or whatever sit down so that he could start class.

“Hello, everyone,” he greeted, plopping himself down on the empty table in the front and pulling his legs into a crisscross position. He was breathing kind of hard, but he was almost luminous with it, and Frank found himself actively fighting off thought veering towards the word “pretty”.

“Hello, Mr. Way,” Britney responded dutifully. That bitch.

Gerard smiled at her obligingly. “Hello, Britney.”

The dumb bitch preened. Frank fucking loathed her.

“If you haven’t already turned in your self-portraits, whether that’s because you forgot or because you couldn’t reach the turn-in box for fear of interrupting Mr. Biersack and mine’s epic battle, go ahead and do so now.” Gerard blew some of his very much disheveled hair out of his face. “I’ve defeated him, so it’s safe now.”

“You wish, man,” Andrew or Andy or whatever replied.

The class laughed a little at that as several of them, Frank included, got up to turn int their projects.

“This next project will be the last project of the semester,” Gerard announced once everyone was seated again. “I’ve heard a few of you are transferring out of my class at semester, and of course that makes me sad, so our next project will be something happy to kind of make up for my students abandoning me.” He was smiling, but Frank wondered if it really did make him sad that there were people transferring out of his class. He was the sensitive type. “Your assignment is to portray triumph. I want you to use your mediums to show someone or something overcoming the impossible. For example, you could depict me emerging victorious from a harrowing ruler duel against Andy-“ the class laughed, “-or something equally as difficult. All of the same limitations apply, so no sex, no drugs, no gang signs. Please do not give the administration a reason to fire me.”

Gerard paused in his speech long enough to pull his hair back into a tiny, loose ponytail, and Frank noticed that his roots weren’t showing anymore. The color was more vibrant, as well. He must have re-dyed it over the weekend.

“This is your final project,” Gerard reminded the class, tucking the strands already falling from his sad little ponytail behind his ears. “Please don’t half-ass this. This doubles as your final, so it’s worth twenty five percent of your final grade. Since it’s so important, you’ll have the full three and a half weeks until Christmas break to work on it in class, but you won’t have any time to work on it at home unless you take it home after school to work on it. Does anyone have any questions?”

There were no questions.

“Excellent.” He clapped his hands together, sliding from the table and moving to sit at his actual desk. “This is a two-day week, so we’re just going to spend the rest of the hour today and the hour tomorrow watching YouTube videos. I hope you guys like _Simon’s Cat_, cos if not, you’re shit outta luck.”

~

On Wednesday at exactly 5:30 pm, Frank stood outside of his father’s house, staring at the front door. Inside, he could hear the tell-tale sounds of his half-sisters engaging in their typical, general heathendom and his stepmother yelling after them. Cynthia’s voice was sharp and shrill, but Frank liked her anyway. Sometimes, he thought she might be too good for his dad.

Frank Sr. was an interesting man to say the least. He worked full time in the sales department of a company that Frank didn’t care enough about to remember the name of. Whatever the company, his job took up most of his time, and then his replacement children and second wife took up the rest of it. Even back when Frank still lived with his dad part time, he’d felt like he barely existed in their lives.

Frank Sr., however, did not seem to be aware of this, so whenever Frank bothered to come over, he acted like nothing had changed between them at all. It was irritating, but it was a necessary evil. If Frank Sr. actually thought there was a problem, he’d never leave Frank alone, which would be somewhat counterproductive considering all Frank wanted from his father was to be _left alone_.

The evening progressed almost exactly as Frank had assumed it would. His sisters were loud and wild, knocking over furniture as they raced around the living room, and then the kitchen, and then the dining room. Cynthia cooked something barely edible, but vegetarian. Frank Sr. pulled him into an ungodly bear hug at the door, and then proceeded to talk without stopping until dinner. Frank wasn’t even sure what he was saying half the time. He just nodded, agreed, and tried to appear interested.

The only time during the duration of the evening that Frank was truly caught off guard was towards the end of the meal. The girls had abandoned their plates at the table and gone back to causing mayhem, so it was just Frank Sr, who had stopped talking long enough to eat, Cynthia, and Frank. Everything was going fine. Frank Sr. was talking about bonds or something in between bites and Frank was pretending to care.

Then, during a rare lull in conversation, Cynthia spoke up. “So, Frank,” she began sweetly in her too-high voice. “Your mother tells me that one of your childhood friends moved back to town. Gerard, right? You used to talk about him a lot. How is he?”

Now, in Frank’s defense, not only was he having a really _off_ couple of weeks, but the last thing he expected from an evening at his father’s house was to be asked about his life besides the generic school, work, music questions. She simply caught him off guard.

In other words, Frank choked on his tofurkey.

“Oh, my goodness, Frank! Are you okay?” Cynthia shrieked, patting his back helpfully as he gasped for air and forcefully swallowed the object blocking his airways.

“I’m fine,” he choked out. “Gerard’s fine. Everyone’s fine. How’s Grampa?”

Frank Sr. took the bait, never missing an opportunity to answer a question in about a thousand words and no less, and the subject was effectively changed, much to Frank’s immediate relief and acute embarrassment.

During the wee morning hours, Frank typically didn’t answer the phone for anyone other than Mikey. However, on Wednesday night – Thursday morning – Frank’s phone alerted him to an incoming call from Ryan. Since he was already awake scrolling Tumblr, worrying about lying to Mikey’s family, and even more so, worrying about spending time with Gerard after his recent confession, he listened to the nagging voice at the back of his head that told him to answer it.

Ryan was crying on the other end of the line.

“Is it too late to go with you to your Thanksgiving thing?” he asked, his voice broken and hoarse.

Frank thought for a second, listening to Ryan cried, and then decided, “Nah, it’s not too late.”

“Okay, good.” Then, after a few shaky beats of silence. “Can you come get me tomorrow? I don’t have my license yet.”

Frank sat up, rubbed the tired from his eyes, and pushed his laptop to the side of the bed. The time on his phone read 4:03 am. Ryan was crying on the phone to Frank when he should have been crying to Brendon.

“What happened?” Frank asked, more curious than he was tired, though he found that he was _very_ tired.

Ryan sniffled a few times before mumbling weakly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tomorrow, Frank had to get up and face a house full of people he barely knew and hadn’t interacted with in a while. He would need all the strength and energy he could muster to overcome it. Still, he couldn’t make himself hang up on Ryan. Not right then. Not when he knew that Ryan had no one.

Frank pulled the blankets from his body, mentally protesting at the sudden temperature shift, and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m coming to get you,” he declared, scanning the floor with bleary eyes for some pants. “Be outside in, like, five minutes.”

“You don’t have to,” Ryan protested, but even that was half-hearted at best. “It’s really late.”

“I’m aware of the time.” He pulled on the first pair of pants his hands brushed against, which happened to be a particularly smelly pair of jeans. Whatever. “Will you be outside or not? Or do I need to come to the door?”

During the ensuing silence, Frank pulled his pants up clumsily, nearly falling over twice, located his shoes, and crept down the stairs so as not to wake his mom. It was only after he located his mom’s car keys on the kitchen counter that he heard Ryan’s voice over the receiver say, “I’ll be outside.”

“Excellent,” Frank replied. Then, he hung up and sighed.

He really needed to learn not to be such a fucking pushover.

Ryan was serious about not wanting to talk about whatever had happened. Apparently, that meant he wasn’t going to talk much at all.

He rolled up in front of Ryan’s house at 4:09 am, and Ryan was there like he said he’d be, eyes red and puffy, a small backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder. He got into Frank’s mom’s car without a word, and, at 4:13 am, entered Frank’s house quietly.

Frank was always the first to admit that he was bitchy at best and flat out fucking rude at worst. He wasn’t exactly nurturing, and no one had ever really asked him to be. He sure as hell didn’t know what to say to Ryan to make the situation better, and he knew that he was more likely to cause harm than good if he tried. All he did know how to do was be around and wait until Ryan wanted to talk. Until then, he would be quiet. After all, silence had healing properties, too.

He would just have to improvise.

First, he sat Ryan down on the couch in the living room and wrapped him in the fluffiest blanket he could find. Then, he picked on the first musical that came up in a search on Netflix and put it on for Ryan while he went to the kitchen to find something sweet. His mom was on a diet, so there wasn’t much, but Frank did manage to scrounge up a hidden container of rocky road ice cream from the back of the freezer – probably hidden there by Linda for cheat days – and presented it to Ryan with a spoon. After all of that was done, he sat down next to him on the couch and waited, watching carefully to see if any of it was helping it all.

Ryan didn’t say anything as the hours ticked by. He finished his ice cream by the end of the first movie and stared blankly at the screen for the duration of the second. It was almost 7:30 in the morning when Frank finally decided that they were going to bed, because the poor kid wasn’t up for deciding much of anything for himself, and Frank needed to get as much sleep as possible before he had to be at the Way residence later that day. It was only as they were getting settled into opposite sides of Frank’s queen sized bed, not touching, but close enough that Frank could still be there if he was needed, that Ryan finally spoke.

“You’re really nice to me,” he said, and he sounded dazed. Frank glanced over at him, and his eyes were glazed over. “Where did you learn to take care of people when they’re sad?”

“TV, mostly. And my best friend, Mikey,” Frank replied, automatically divulging the information because he was tired. “He did the same kind of stuff for me whenever I was upset.”

Ryan pondered this for a moment before declaring, “He sounds like a good friend.”

Frank agreed but said nothing. His mouth was heavy and he was tired of talking.

After several moments of silence, Frank was mostly asleep and assumed that Ryan was as well. This was disproved when he asked, “Are we friends?”

“Fucking duh,” Frank mumbled.

Ryan said nothing else, and when Frank looked over, he was asleep. Frank followed suit quickly after.

Linda must have been very surprised to walk into Frank’s bedroom on Thursday morning to find another boy in there, snuggled up to her son’s side in his sleep. If it weren’t for the fact that Frank had spent the night tossing and turning, restless with worry for Ryan and the events yet to transpire sooner and sooner as the hours ticked by, he might not have woken up when she opened his bedroom door and walked in.

The look on Linda’s face was something akin to surprise and disappointment. Frank could only assume she thought he’d snuck Ryan in to fuck or something. She wasn’t judgy, but she didn’t tolerate sneaking around in her house.

“This isn’t what it looks like, “ Frank whispered, sitting up carefully so as not to jostle Ryan, and getting out of bed. He tried to look calm, like he hadn’t done anything wrong, as he approached her. If he looked guilty, it’d be harder to make his mother believe that he was not, in fact, whoring around – at least, not anymore. “He called me last night and was really upset. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Linda looked at Ryan, looked at Frank, then led her son into the hallway and shut the door. “What happened?” she asked carefully. Her face was coached into a blank expression. Frank could tell that she was trying not to pass judgement.

The truth felt like his best option.

“He usually goes to Thanksgiving at Brendon’s, but he and Brendon are having issues or something. I dunno,” Frank explained, keeping his voice steady and his eyes locked on hers to make himself more believable. “So, I offered to let him come with us because I know Donna won’t care and he’s been all upset and whatever. He said he didn’t know and that he’d get back to me about it, and then he called me last night, crying and shit and he sounded really upset. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and picked him up and brought him back here. We watched a couple movies, ate your ice cream, and then we went to sleep.”

Linda appraised her son for several moments, thinking, and then smiled slightly and said, “You ate my ice cream?”

“It was absolutely necessary to the healing process,” Frank insisted, a smile of his own forming.

“Then I guess I can forgive you just this once, since it was necessary to the healing process,” she said. Then, she pulled him into her arms for a hug and a kiss on the forehead and added, “and because you’re such a sweet kid.”

Frank didn’t really think he was all that sweet, but he wasn’t going to argue the point when he’d just avoided punishment for sneaking out and bringing someone home without his mother’s knowledge. He may have been legally an adult, but he still had to abide by his mother’s rules while living in her house, and he had broken a good few of them.

“The party starts around 2, so I want to be over at the Way’s by 2:15 so that I can visit with Donna,” Linda told him, pulling back from the hug, still smiling. “You and Ryan need to be ready to go in two hours. Think you can manage that?”

“Sure,” Frank agreed. “Just let me wake up Ryan and then we’ll, like, shower and get ready and stuff.”

“Separate showers, of course.” Even though she was smiling, Frank could tell that this was a real concern for her.

Frank rolled his eyes. “We’re not together, Mom. Just friends.”

“Good. Then separate showers won’t be a problem.”

The first thing Donna did when she saw Frank was pinch his cheeks. “Frank Anthony Iero Junior!” she exclaimed, her fingers vices on his cheek flesh. “I haven’t seen you in months!”

“Yeah, son,” agreed Donald, arm around his wife. “What’s the deal? We live across the street! Why haven’t you stopped by to say hi?”

They were smiling, but Donna held a little hurt in her eyes. She was like Gerard in the way that she wasn’t exceptionally good at hiding her emotions.

Frank very carefully and politely pried her hands off so that he could speak. “I’m sorry, guys,” Frank told them, and he made his voice sound as disappointed as he could manage for someone who did not regret avoiding social obligation in the slightest. “I’ve been really busy with play practice lately. In fact, we just started choreography. I’d have been there today, but Mrs. Carlisle decided at the last minute to let us have the day off.”

“Oh my goodness, that’s right!” Donna squeaked. She clapped her hands together in front of herself abruptly with excitement. “Gerard was just telling us that you were in a musical of some sort. What’s it called again?”

“_The Death of a Bachelor_,” Frank replied. Then, because he didn’t want to carry the weight of their attention by himself, and also because he was a gigantic asshole, he clasped Ryan’s shoulder and added, “Ryan here is one of the leads.”

“That’s wonderful!” She took one of Ryan’s hands, oblivious to the way he held himself like a deer in oncoming traffic. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ryan. I’m Donna and this is my husband, Donald.”

“Nice to meet you,” Donald said, shaking Ryan’s other hand.

“Uh, you too,” the poor kid replied.

Donna pinched Frank’s cheeks again. “I guess we can forgive you for not coming to see us since you’ve been so busy with the play and making new friends.” She winked at Ryan. “Besides, our own kids hardly come to see us. I can’t expect the neighbor boy to visit if my own son doesn’t call me when he comes to town.”

Donald looked pointedly at the kitchen and continued, “You’ll have to let us know when the play is so that we can come and see your performance.”

“Of course,” Frank agreed. “I’ll save you seats in the front.”

“You’re such a sweet boy.” Donna gave one last pat to Frank’s cheek and then dismissed them by adding, “Mikey and Gerard are in the kitchen.”

Mikey and Gerard were sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table when Frank entered the kitchen. They were playing a card game that looked like Uno, but neither of them were talking. They were simply staring at each other intensely as they laid down their cards.

Gerard noticed Frank first. “Hiya, Frankie,” he greeted, his face lighting up immediately. It was kind of annoyingly sweet.

Frank smiled a little and waved hello back. “Hi, guys.” Ryan appeared beside him just a second later, thankfully giving him an excuse to look away – or, more specifically, not look at Gerard. “This is my friend, Ryan.”

“You didn’t mention you were bringing a friend. I didn’t even know you _had_ other friends,” Mikey barbed in good humor. “Ryan, right? I’m Mikey.”

Ryan smiled shyly. “Nice to meet you,” he mumbled.

“We’ll see.” Mikey smiled a wicked half smile. Dramatic bitch.

“Aw, Mikey. Are you jealous?” Frank teased. “You know I could never replace you.”

“Damn straight.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he gestured to where his brother was sitting and added, “That’s Gerard.”

Ryan waved awkwardly and Gerard returned the gesture in kind.

“So, what brings you to the Way Family Thanksgiving with this asshole, Ryan?” Mikey questioned, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “It can’t be because you like spending time with him.”

Frank shoved him into the table playfully and it slid behind him, slamming into Gerard. “You’re being such a prick today. I thought Gerard was the problem child.”

“What did _I_ do?” Gerard was smiling, but his eyes were somewhat panicked.

“I dunno. He’s been unusually well-behaved today, so I feel like I almost have to compensate for it,” Mikey replied.

Gerard pushed the table back to its proper position. “Please don’t drag me into this.”

“Remember that time Gerard locked us in the basement?” Frank laughed a little as Gerard’s face began to turn red.

“Remember that time Gerard broke his toe kicking me?” Mikey added.

“Hey, remember that time Gerard got locked out of the house in his underwear and he had to break in through the backdoor, but he made so much noise that the neighbors saw him?”

“What about that time he stole some markers from the art store and then felt so bad that he tried to sneak them back but got caught and they thought he was stealing?”

“What is this? Attack Gerard Day?” Gerard pouted, defensive. “I just wanted to play Uno.”

Frank smiled at Ryan, who was quietly watching the exchange. “Welcome to the shit show that is my extended family.”

“Look, I’m not, like, mad or anything, but I still feel like you could have given me a heads up before I walked into a room and made the most awkward eye contact of my entire fucking life with Mr. Way.”

Frank and Ryan were seated at an old, round card table in the living room. This was the same card table that Frank, Gerard, and Mikey were always sat at during family gatherings growing up, so it was essentially the kid’s table. It was only because Linda and Donna thought they were funny that Ryan and Frank were seated there at that moment, plates of steaming food before them barely making up for the indignance of the situation.

“I didn’t even know you were related to Mr. Way,” Ryan continued, stirring his peas with his fork. “You don’t even act like you know he’s there whenever he’s around.”

“I’m sorry, Ryan,” Frank apologized seriously, pulling absently at the worn vinyl tabletop. “I completely forgot he was going to be here.” Frank paused for a minute. “Well, I forgot that ‘Mr. Way’ was going to be here. I knew Gerard would be here. If you’re uncomfortable, we can leave.”

“No, that’s okay. It’s cool. I’m just kinda confused, I guess. How are you even related?”

“We’re not,” Frank replied, shrugging a little. “They moved in across the street when I was, like, four, and my mom’s been close with their parents ever since.” Frank casually omitted the fact that he spent almost every waking moment with the Way brothers while he was growing up and had been painfully in love with the older one.

“I honestly never would have guessed that. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look at Mr. Way during play practice,” Ryan wheedled, quite obviously fishing for more information. Nosy bitch.

Frank humored him. “I’m usually preoccupied with other stuff during play practice. Besides, he drives me home a lot.”

“And it’s not weird to have him there? At school?”

“It was at first, but he teaches my eighth hour, so I just kinda got used to him being there pretty quickly.” Another lie. Ryan didn’t need to know everything.

“So, what do you do if you’re, like, mad at him, or something? You can’t just avoid him if he teaches your eighth hour.”

_You’d be surprised,_ Frank thought bitterly. Then, he offered yet another lie: “I dunno. I haven’t been mad at him yet. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Blessedly, at that moment, Mikey plopped down in the seat on the other side of Frank, across from Ryan. “I fucking hate cranberry sauce,” he announced, effectively changing the subject. “Mom makes it every year, and no one eats it. Why do we have it _every fucking year_?”

Ryan apprehensively picked at the cranberry sauce on his plate. “I’ve never had it before.”

Mikey looked to him with faux seriousness and his typical deadpan and said, “I’m sure your taste buds would thank you if you kept it that way.”

“Why are his taste buds thanking him?” Gerard asked as he approached, setting his tray in the space between Mikey and Ryan and then sitting.

“Ryan’s never had cranberry sauce,” Mikey explained.

“Oh. He’s not missing anything.”

“That’s what I said.”

“He’s just a boy,” Frank laughed. “He didn’t know any better. Give him a break.”

“Whenever I have to eat cranberry sauce, all I can think of is, like, a fruit funeral,” Gerard said seriously as Frank began taking a drink of his water. “And, like, the guests start going up and eating the fruit corpse.”

Frank laughed so hard he shot water out of his nose. “_What the fuck?_”

“I just mean that it’s unnatural,” Gerard defended, glaring at Frank.

Mikey was having a hard time maintaining a straight face. “When you think of unnatural, your first thought is fruit cannibalism? You’re so fucking weird!”

Gerard raised a single brow in challenge. “At least I’m not into –“

“Shut your _whore mouth_, Gerard.”

Frank was laughing so hard that he thought he might piss himself between coughing fits triggered by the water shot out of his nose. Ryan was grinning, too.

It was kind of nice.

At some point in the evening, about twenty minutes before Mikey was scheduled to fake sickness with Frank’s backup, the younger Way brother noticed how Frank’s fidgeting was steadily getting worse as the night wore on. He had held up alright for most of the duration of the party, and it had really helped to have Ryan there, too. Frank liked being around him for some reason, even though they were very new friends and hardly knew anything about each other. Still, around 7:10 pm, Frank was starting to feel kind of caged in.

“Why don’t you go outside and take a breather for a minute,” Mikey suggested in a whisper after Frank knocked over his cup of water for the second time that evening. “I’ll keep Ryan company if you need a second.”

Frank had been hesitant, but Ryan seemed comfortable enough, so he agreed. He snuck out the sliding doors in the kitchen, escaping quietly to the back patio, where it was cold as hell and dark, but also quiet.

He was just sliding a cigarette out of the carton he’d hidden in his jacket pocket in case of emergencies when the doors opened again. Gerard stepped out into the night air.

“There you are,” he said. “I was worried you went home.”

Frank put the cigarette to his mouth and lit it, cupping his hand around the dollar-store flame to protect it from the wind. “I wouldn’t abandon Ryan here.”

Gerard laughed softly. “Fair enough.” He sat down beside Frank on the bottom step.

The silence between them was so very _almost_ – almost comfortable, almost unbearable, almost tangible. Frank took the first drag of smoke and let it fill in all the cracked and empty spaces in his chest.

“I wasn’t going to out you, by the way,” Frank mumbled around his cigarette. “Earlier, when I said you were a problem child. I was just joking. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Gerard nodded. “I figured. I still panicked for a minute there.”

“Yeah, I could tell.” Frank let out a huff of a laugh. “Your face gives you away every time.”

Gerard plucked Frank’s cigarette out of his mouth, took a drag, and smiled, melancholy in the corners of his mouth. “Before you start saying that I’m a bad liar, remember that I kept my alcoholism from my loved ones for something like five years.”

Frank didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he simply took his cigarette back from Gerard. It was quiet for several moments before Frank spoke again. “I don’t understand this, sometimes,” he said, staring out into the blank sky.

“What don’t you understand?”

“Us,” Frank elaborated. “You. The situation.”

Frank passed the cigarette back, and Gerard took another drag before he said, “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“You’re just…you’re just really nice.” Frank wasn’t sure how else to put it. “Like, too nice.”

“I’m too nice? My apologies. I’ll try to be worse.”

Frank elbowed him lightly. “You said the coffee shop was on the way to school for you, yes?”

Gerard nodded in the affirmative.

“It’s, like, thirty minutes from my house. That tells me that you go _at least_ thirty minutes out of your way every time you drop me off from school. Gas is expensive, dude, and that’s a lot of money to spend on someone who’s so bitchy.”

Gerard waved his free hand dismissively and passed the cigarette back. “I’m not worried about it.”

“That’s what I don’t get. You should be worried about it. They don’t pay you jack shit, remember? You bought me coffee and you drive me around and I’m _bitchy_.”

“You could always try being nice to me, too.” He propped his elbows up on his knees and rested his chin into his open palm. “If you’re so worried about inconveniencing me, you could buy my coffee next time.”

“That’s not the point.”

Gerard smiled softly as Frank took the final drag from his cigarette and stomped it out in the grass. “You think too much,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how to be happy.”

“How does spending money on me make you happy? I’m _bitchy_.”

“You’re challenging,” Gerard corrected, laughing quietly under his breath. “But I like you how you are. Every time you smile at me, it feels like I’m doing something right for a change – like I’m coming home again.”

A swift heat spread up into Frank’s cheeks and over his neck, and he looked away quickly.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” Gerard continued. “Just let me stick around. Please.”

Frank dared to peek at Gerard from the corner of his eye. In the darkness, the artificial light from the kitchen spilled over the back of his head, the shadow caressing his face. He was pretty, even in the dark, even in the cold, even when Frank didn’t want to notice how pretty he was. He was soft, like a blanket, like a cloud, like cotton candy, and somehow like none of those things at the same time. He was Gerard. He was like nothing else.

“Okay,” Frank whispered, pulling his eyes away. His voice wouldn’t go any louder.

The wind was the only sound in their ears for what felt like a long time. Then Gerard spoke up again: “Since we’re voicing confusion tonight, I wanted to ask you about your self-portrait.”

“What about it?”

“It’s good. It’s really good. It’s just really fucking dark, too. An oil painting of yourself as a ghost in a dilapidated cemetery is a little bit of a red flag. A small one, but it’s red flag nonetheless.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you? Cos, kudos for creativity and execution, but it’s just so fucking morbid. You could have made yourself anything and you made yourself _dead_.”

Frank stood abruptly and made to go back inside. He regretted his artistic choices, no matter how good it had felt to express himself at the time. “I said I was fine, Gerard.”

Gerard’s hand around his wrist prevented him from leaving. “Trust is a two-way street, remember?” Frank tried to avoid his eyes but found that he couldn’t. “Do you trust me?”

That was a hard question to answer. Instead, he asked another question. “Do you ever feel invisible?”

Gerard nodded in the affirmative.

“Do you ever feel like that’s the only thing you have going for you?”

Gerard said nothing but pulled at Frank’s wrist until he was sitting again. He didn’t let go.

They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the shadows from the kitchen play out on the grass, the wind whipping at their noses and turning them pink. They sat there until the silence became a third person in their conversation. They sat there, and still they found no answers.

When Frank felt he could stand no more of it, he pulled his wrist from Gerard’s grip and said, “You’re a good guy, Gerard.”

Gerard smiled in response, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

They went back inside to the party, the exchange between them heavy in the pit of Frank’s stomach. This was only alleviated when, once or twice throughout the last hour of the party, Gerard caught his eye and smiled, like they were both in on a secret. Maybe they were.

Maybe they were just meeting each other for the first time all over again.


	5. UPDATE ON THE AUTHOR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you guys aren't gonna like this

Writing for this fandom has been a bit of a wild ride. I think I entered the ring with high expectations and let myself down. Not much you can do about that, but understand where I'm coming from.

I was almost done with the next chapter when my computer broke. Hard disk malfunction, and they couldn't retrieve the data. Doesn't mean it's gone, just means I don't have the money to pay someone who specializes in data retrieval 300-500$ to get it back. Either way, I don't know how this story is supposed to end and now might be the best time to get out altogether.

So, I don't think I'll finish this story. I know, I know, that really sucks. I've been promising updates for months. I just feel like this is the last straw. So, maybe one day I'll come back and finish this, but probably not. I'm sorry. You guys deserve better. You deserve an author that finishes the stories they're writing in a timely manner and with adequate slow burn and fluff.

Best wishes, and I hope the other fics in this fandom treat you well. Goodbye for now.


	6. UPDATE ON THE AUTHOR PT 2

I went back through my documents and the emails I sent, and I managed to salvage some of the story. There was a lot more of it before my computer crashed and it was very different, but I think if I can save it I'll post what I have for you.

Sorry for the wring around, guys. I just wanted you to know that if I can give you more of this story, I will. I mean, I worked really hard on it and I think it deserves to see the light of day.

**Author's Note:**

> Give me that sweet, sweet constructive criticism or come yell with me over on my Tumblr, stressieboi.


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